I like movies, fine dining, and good looking people.

I love, love, love reading personal ads. Yes, totally for the entertainment value - even when I was single I only liked to read them. I remember when I lived in Atlanta and Boston, or visited my pal in DC, we would read some funny, interesting, original ads. Not that we were making fun of people looking for love - we always rooted for the guy/gal who had an interesting ad. It's those ones where people are looking for a blonde guy with green eyes, or a girl no taller than 5' 5"...there's something cheesy about those kinds of specifics. Anyhow, the norm now is that most ads suck. I find it interesting that people who are looking to meet someone would put together such poor, sloppy, un-original ads. And some of the photos are hideous. Come on, you've gotta use a flattering picture. Don't people realize their ad is their first chance to make an impression? Who doesn't like to watch movies? What exactly is fine dining - fancy cuisine or a perfectly cooked prime rib and baked potato? This one was accompanied by a picture of a guy with awful hat hair:

I'm a single from P-----,NH, looking for someone who can share with me, I like to enjoy the life with having meal at restaurant,travelling, swimming and any kind of fun activities, I'm a 37 year old guy lived in P-----, New Hampshire. I like to describe my self as an easy going, happy, intelligent,attracti ve and funny and ready to have girlfriend to share

Egad. Is he a foreigner? Does he have no idea how to use a computer - cut, paste, delete? This is not the norm. Most are something like this one:

I am a layed back person . I enjoy being at home like dinner and a movie at home is a good thing. Dont get out a lot but like a small pub or sports bar over nightclubs. Like to shoot pool and darts. I love being at the ocean love saltwater fishing. Like to play golf at least once a week. Looking for someone with some common interest to spend good times with

Is the proper use of grammar and punctuation a lost art? Basic sentence structure an art form, you say? I'm a bad speller and my grammar stinks, too, but I usually check it before I put it out there. I know it's not a huge deal - people are always in a rush, but if I didn't know someone, I'd think twice about them if they were too lazy to whip out the dictionary for a personal ad. Note: if you can't spell "laid", you don't deserve to get laid.

Former coworker and I had this discussion a few times: if you were single would you create a personal ad, or respond to a personal ad you found intriguing? I couldn't do it. I think I'm old fashioned. I'd rather go out and do things I find enjoyable and hope/try to meet someone while doing those things. I think back to when I was younger and would give my phone number to someone I barely talked to. Then, while out on a date, I would realize we had nothing in common - nothing to talk about. That's what a personal ad is to me. Blind dates, too. I suppose there are people who might talk online or on the phone before they ever meet, but I think there is still something about the first time you see someone - the click, the connection. It doesn't feel forced. You see them again and again before you go out on a date. You get to know each other - experience each other in certain situations. But that's me. Who knows, if I found ads that were original, had decent grammar, and actually said something about a person - oh, and I were unhappily single - maybe I would change my mind. But I dunno.

I may have to write more about this later...