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10 How Do I Write My Own Ad?




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This article is from the Internet Personals: Advice for Straights FAQ, by Dean Esmay esmay@syndicomm.com with numerous contributions by others.

10 How Do I Write My Own Ad?

Ah, there's a whole lot to be said here, and the advice can vary a
lot. I'll concentrate on general advice for the moment, and on what
I personally think:

There is NOTHING more frustrating for the personals user than to
spend ten minutes reading an ad that sounds very interesting, only to
find out near the end that the person wants someone of a different
age, or body type, or that the person lives much too far away to
think about a relationship with.

So, do yourself and everyone else a favor and START EVERY AD WITH THE
BASICS ABOUT YOURSELF. The basics include:

A) Your SEX
B) Your AGE
C) WHERE you LIVE
D) Your RACE
E) What you are BASICALLY LOOKING FOR

And the best place to put all this is IN YOUR SUBJECT LINE. It saves
an ENORMOUS amount of time for EVERYBODY.

Some people are big fans of cute and creative subject line. For
example:

MUTANT SEEKS MUTANT. LET'S TAKE OVER THE UNIVERSE!

Now this is pretty funny, and pretty clever. Unfortunately, if this
happen was from a Gay White Male, aged 42, who only wanted gay
black men in their 40s in Boston, I'm going to waste a lot of time
reading this ad, because I'm not gay, I'm not black, I'm under 40,
and I don't live anywhere near Boston! Why not make it easy on me and
start with:

Bostonian GWM, 42, ISO GBM, 40-50, for romance

Then make the first line of your ad say: "I'm a mutant looking for
another mutant, so we can take over the universe!" Another example
might be:

Bostonion Mutant seeks Mutant (GWM, 42, ISO GBM 40-50)

By making sure your subject line contains your basic information, you
will not only be doing everyone who would NOT be interested in you a
favor, but you will increase the likelihood of someone who DOES want
to meet you of actually spotting your ad.

-=-=-

All right, you've given a nice, concise, descriptive title to your
message. Now you need to put some thought into the ad itself. The
general advice I can give there is:

A) DON'T RUSH. You have plenty of time to write this. Make it good.

B) PUT SOME EFFORT INTO SPELLING & PUNCTUATION, and try not to
ramble. You want to make a good impression.

C) BE CLEAR ABOUT WHAT YOU WANT AND WHAT YOU DON'T WANT. If you're
picky about something, it's better to say so in your ad than to let
someone down later. "Please, if you're overweight, don't respond" may
seem cruel or thoughtless, but if that's the way it is for you, SAY
SO. It is much, much kinder than developing a relationship with
someone who you have to shoot down later than just telling it like it
is up front.

What's better, disappointing someone BEFORE they waste their time
getting to know you, or after they've gotten their hopes up?

D) BE AS HONEST AS POSSIBLE. Lies will only get you in trouble
later.

E) DO YOUR BEST TO BE TOTALLY SINCERE. Insincerity frequently shows,
even if you're not aware of it. True sincerity usually shines
through and is much more attractive to most people.

F) BE HONEST ABOUT YOUR OWN SHORTCOMINGS. Don't harp on them, but
man, avoid discomfort for yourself and others and just let 'em know
up front who and what you are and are not. Saying you don't want
long-term committment, or that you're overweight, or that you have
kids, or that you have bad skin, or that you have no fashion sense,
or that you WANT marriage and kids, will be lots better than getting
close to someone who finds out later and wishes they hadn't bothered
with you.

G) TAKE AS MUCH SPACE AS YOU NEED.

This last is an issue on which there is some disagreement. The
general FAQ for alt.personals advises posters to keep messages short
and to the point, and to try to keep them to one screenful.

Baloney!

These days, most people have...

These days, most people have very cheap internet access. Avoid
rambling, but remember, space is cheap, and the one way in which
online personals are usually much better than newspapers is that YOU
CAN TAKE AS MUCH SPACE AS YOU NEED.

There is no better way to give an impression of who you are and what
you're like than by taking your time and trying to write something
that really tells who you are, what you want out of life, and what
you're looking for. Your writing style will tell people a lot about
you, too.

I have had dozens of responses and a good number of positive
face-to-face meetings, and I always take a lot of space to describe
both myself and what I'm looking for. I've also found that long ads
are a good way to sift out people of low intelligence or short
attention spans.

On the other hand (heheh!) you want to try not to be too long either.
If you ramble too much, or make a huge shopping list of everything
you want and don't want, you're going to bore people. It's a fine
line to tread; if your ad is too short, it doesn't say enough and
you're ignored; if it's too long, you bore people and are ignored.
So, you have to do your best to avoid both extremes.

If you want a general rule of thumb, shoot for a length of 2-5
screenfuls. But if you want the REAL rule, it's this: write just
exactly as much as you think you need to say everything you need to
say, but not one word more than you need.

 

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