Personal ad advice.

I've been searching the personal ads recently for new material for my blog. What I found there (consistently) worries me. So, I've decided to dedicate an article about what NOT to do/say in your personal ad.

1. Punctuation matters. I have lost count of the number of ads I came across that didn't use ANY punctuation at all. They were one long sentence that most of the time didn't make any sense at all. Even worse than that were the folks who don't know how to use quotation marks and just throw them around willy nilly. It just makes you look dumb, guys, and that's never a good thing.

2. Spellcheck programs are your friend. Really. I am convinced that the majority of people in my area dropped out of school after 4th grade, because that's how they write. Everybody makes mistakes sometimes, but when you use 'no' instead of 'know' and say you are 'impudent' when you really mean 'impotent' something is terribly wrong (the 'impudent' guy argued with me via email that impudent means the same thing as impotent. He also threw parenthesies and quotation marks around like they were simply for decoration. Then he told me that he wanted to drink my pee. Nice.)

3. Very few women reading the ads give a rat's ass about the size of your penis, and even fewer want to see it - so please, please don't post/send photos of it.

4. Advertising for 'no strings attached' sex will get you nowhere, and it just makes it seem like you think all women are whores.

5. '30 year old white male, likes music and food' is NOT an adequate description of yourself. You gotta give a girl a little more to go on, you know?

6. Declaring undying love for your ex wife/girlfriend/baby mama will NOT get you a new girl. We typically don't share well.

7. Saying 'I just want someone who will love me' smacks of desperation - not to mention it's kinda pathetic.

8. Don't be hatin' on the fat chicks. It makes you sound superficial and shallow.

9. Be specific, but not too specific. 'I want a redheaded athiest girl with glasses' really eliminates a lot of chicks, some of whom might do well with you. Don't laugh, someone actually posted an ad saying that's what he wanted.

10. Last but by no means least, bragging about your sexual prowess is a turn-off for most of us. I don't want to know how good in bed you are right off the bat, it makes it seem like you're only after one thing - and again, most of us don't dig that.


I'm putting another dating ad article together tonight and will post it in the next couple of days. Watch this space....