(8 Dec, 2011)
Know what's fun to do if you have time to kill but don't feel like putting pants on?
Craigslist personal ads.
Some people remember the days of personal ads--where people told lies about themselves to get dates before we had the internet. The newspaper I got still took personal ads until I was a senior in high school and that was one of the sections I'd take on Sundays. Comics, art-and-style section, Art Buchwald, Dave Barry--and the personals. I think my mom was hoping I was looking for dates but the personals were almost funnier than anything else. I was occasionally tempted to call a few of them just to see what kind of crazy person was behind the ad, but most of the time they said some permutation of the same thing: 'SWM looking for SF of any race or species to share candlelight dinners, movies, walks on the beach, and talk about literature and music. Friendship and maybe more. Must love dogs, be non-smoking, and into depraved sexual role-play.' Almost all of them made reference to candlelight dinners and walking on the beach, as well as stressing that they were looking for companionship primarily and 'maybe more'--which I assume was some kind of code for 'I wanna stick it in you'. Something about the internet just made people completely change their tactics when it came to dating--possibly because online you don't have to pay by-the-letter for your ad. Not that people are original today--they're not, and most of the online ads are gloriously derivative--but they don't say the same things.
Anyway. Personal ads have always been kinda funny to me. I guess it's probably pretty cruel of me to laugh at people who are so obviously trying really hard to find someone, but sometimes... well, let's just say that if I tried NOT to laugh I would give myself a hernia.
Then I discovered Craigslist.
There's like this unspoken rule on the internet that Craigslist is where you go when you're too cheap to pay for a good dating site and not imaginative enough to attract attention on a free dating site. Even though there are dating communities for every single paraphilia on the face of the planet (BDSM, scat fetish, age-play, foot fetish, furries, EVERYTHING!) there are some people who are just relegated to Craigslist. That's where you tend to find stuff like 'come to my hotel room every night for a week and by the end of the week I can totally get a fist up there' or 'looking for an Asian chick to vacuum my apartment naked in stiletto spike heels and a sombrero'--stuff that's kind of weird and bizarrely specific. (Yes those are both real ads. I wish I'd screencapped them, no one believes me.)
And then I discovered Craigslist's MISSED CONNECTIONS and it was like angels rained glory on me from heaven. If I never buy another book again as long as I live, I'll be happy as long as I can still read Missed Connections. Again, most of them are pretty much the same--something like 'our eyes met briefly in the denture adhesive aisle at Target--coffee?' or 'I was the man with the prosthetic leg buying enema bags; you were the woman arguing with the pharmacist about the price of yeast infection cream and I thought you were beautiful, let's get to know each other'. Every so often, though...
How am I supposed to resist an ad titled 'You Farted at Wal Mart'??
Let me just say, I'm glad I read it.
I feel like this is a form of entertainment unknown to the masses. It's such a shame, too...
Know what's fun to do if you have time to kill but don't feel like putting pants on?
Craigslist personal ads.
Some people remember the days of personal ads--where people told lies about themselves to get dates before we had the internet. The newspaper I got still took personal ads until I was a senior in high school and that was one of the sections I'd take on Sundays. Comics, art-and-style section, Art Buchwald, Dave Barry--and the personals. I think my mom was hoping I was looking for dates but the personals were almost funnier than anything else. I was occasionally tempted to call a few of them just to see what kind of crazy person was behind the ad, but most of the time they said some permutation of the same thing: 'SWM looking for SF of any race or species to share candlelight dinners, movies, walks on the beach, and talk about literature and music. Friendship and maybe more. Must love dogs, be non-smoking, and into depraved sexual role-play.' Almost all of them made reference to candlelight dinners and walking on the beach, as well as stressing that they were looking for companionship primarily and 'maybe more'--which I assume was some kind of code for 'I wanna stick it in you'. Something about the internet just made people completely change their tactics when it came to dating--possibly because online you don't have to pay by-the-letter for your ad. Not that people are original today--they're not, and most of the online ads are gloriously derivative--but they don't say the same things.
Anyway. Personal ads have always been kinda funny to me. I guess it's probably pretty cruel of me to laugh at people who are so obviously trying really hard to find someone, but sometimes... well, let's just say that if I tried NOT to laugh I would give myself a hernia.
Then I discovered Craigslist.
There's like this unspoken rule on the internet that Craigslist is where you go when you're too cheap to pay for a good dating site and not imaginative enough to attract attention on a free dating site. Even though there are dating communities for every single paraphilia on the face of the planet (BDSM, scat fetish, age-play, foot fetish, furries, EVERYTHING!) there are some people who are just relegated to Craigslist. That's where you tend to find stuff like 'come to my hotel room every night for a week and by the end of the week I can totally get a fist up there' or 'looking for an Asian chick to vacuum my apartment naked in stiletto spike heels and a sombrero'--stuff that's kind of weird and bizarrely specific. (Yes those are both real ads. I wish I'd screencapped them, no one believes me.)
And then I discovered Craigslist's MISSED CONNECTIONS and it was like angels rained glory on me from heaven. If I never buy another book again as long as I live, I'll be happy as long as I can still read Missed Connections. Again, most of them are pretty much the same--something like 'our eyes met briefly in the denture adhesive aisle at Target--coffee?' or 'I was the man with the prosthetic leg buying enema bags; you were the woman arguing with the pharmacist about the price of yeast infection cream and I thought you were beautiful, let's get to know each other'. Every so often, though...
How am I supposed to resist an ad titled 'You Farted at Wal Mart'??
Let me just say, I'm glad I read it.
I feel like this is a form of entertainment unknown to the masses. It's such a shame, too...
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