Bad news for lonely geeks

[Angel Tarragon]

Crazy. :\

 

[RangerWickett]

My friend Mike has a great story involving these things. In college, he spent 3 years chasing after a lesbian he fell in love with named Alesia. After they graduated, he lost track of her, until a year later he gets a pop-up ad:

I'm a [Female], [24]
Seeking [Male]

And then there was a picture of Alesia.

Mike stares at the picture, then points at his screen and yells, "Liar!"

Now he sees her about once a week in various online ads.

 

[Xath]

Is there a secret for personal ads? I haven't received any with mine; granted I'm not looking for a serious relationship. Did you post a picture? I need to "get over" my camera shyness

Posting a picture is definitely going to help more people look at you. If there's no picture on a personals site, people are more likely to just assume the worst about your appearance.

I once read personals out of boredom, and I had a severe blow to my faith in humanity. By far, the scariest personals are on Craigslist. I didn't realize it was ok for married men to advertise that they're seeking a casual encounter, but don't want their wives to find out.

It tempts me to respond to them and then forward the emails to their wives. Sickos.

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

Is there a secret for personal ads? I haven't received any with mine; granted I'm not looking for a serious relationship. Did you post a picture? I need to "get over" my camera shyness

Yeah, I did. I'm no Brad Pitt, but evidently pics make a difference.

 

[trancejeremy]

It also really helps saying you are a rich lawyer.

After getting frustrated without getting a response, I tried that once, basically rewriting my ad but mentioning I was also a rich lawyer (I am not) and turned up the arrogance a bit, and boom, got a ton of replies.

(It was just an experiment, I never answered any of those, though I did read them, which I still feel guilty about. )

 

[Aeson]

It also really helps saying you are a rich lawyer.

After getting frustrated without getting a response, I tried that once, basically rewriting my ad but mentioning I was also a rich lawyer (I am not) and turned up the arrogance a bit, and boom, got a ton of replies.

(It was just an experiment, I never answered any of those, though I did read them, which I still feel guilty about. )

I'm going to try this. I'm curious to what kind of replies I'll get.

 

[trancejeremy]

I did my experiment way back when Yahoo's personals were free; I suspect that now that it's subscriber only, it's mostly men who subscribe (since that's who Yahoo targets).

I also did another experiment and wrote a really chavininistic ad. That did even better, overflowing the mail box. A large amount was actually hate mail, but a surprisingly large amount wasn't.

Not to pick on women, I also tried writing a couple fake female ads and see the results from men. The one as a bimbo did well, while the one written as a younger Bea Arthur didn't get any replies.

Anyway, I still feel guilty about my experiments, but they were very educating.

 

[ssampier]

Posting a picture is definitely going to help more people look at you. If there's no picture on a personals site, people are more likely to just assume the worst about your appearance.

I once read personals out of boredom, and I had a severe blow to my faith in humanity. By far, the scariest personals are on Craigslist. I didn't realize it was ok for married men to advertise that they're seeking a casual encounter, but don't want their wives to find out.

It tempts me to respond to them and then forward the emails to their wives. Sickos.

I'm average, I would say. I am about 10-15 pound overweight, my clothes consist of polo shirts and jeans. I wear contacts instead of glasses now. I just can't seem get over the "camera shyness" to post a picture.

Thanks for the information.

BTW, those guys are messed-up; just begging to be caught.