The Ad...

First you have to decide which of the 9 million dating sites you're going to choose. How do you even do that? Personally, I picked the one that I see the most commercials for. You know...the one that guarantees you someone in 6 months or you get your money back. Or at least they used to make that guarantee...I'm noticing that's not being said on their most recent ads. Is that a sign?? Oh well, the money for the subscription's been paid now, so I guess I'm stuck for the next 3 months at least.

Next comes designing your ad. How do you sell yourself without sounding corny? Got to have a great catch phrase to lure the men in...yeah...still not sure if I've got that one right...Oh well. On to the next questions...why are there so many? Many of them I see the validity of, but some of them are a little ridiculous.  Is the man of my dreams really going to care whether I like fish or not? How many relationships have ended because the couple couldn't decide what kind of pet to get? Quite frankly, if that was the reason cited, I would argue that there was something much deeper going on than could be solved at the local pet store. But, I answer the question. Why? Because I get a glaring ORANGE note when I leave something blank, and I feel like I'm being yelled at. That my relationship status depends on having all of these fields filled out. Besides, I can't stand unfinished business.  Then it comes time to fill out the narrative. How do you summarize who you are in a paragraph? Oh sure, you can write a novella about your beliefs, hopes and dreams but given the attention span of most of us who the hell is really going to read that much? I'm half tempted to write something incredibly long just to see who can hang in there.

But I try to keep it simple. I talk about how wonderful I am. Talk about what qualities I want in my mate. This is not as easy as it sounds. I mean, I know I'm awesome. And I want to show that. But to acheive that without sound arrogant is a feat in itself. Then to try and list the qualities I want in a mate and not sound demanding? But in all honesty, I'm in a unique situation where I can say exactly what I want. It is one of the advantages to online dating. If you don't want to date left handed people, you can say that (I have no preference for left or right handed people by the way). And reading through others ads gives you an opportunity to decide who you're dealing with and if you want to deal with them at all. Of course, this is totally reliant on the idea that people are being truthful in their posts...but we'll get into that discussion another day.  So after many revisions I get my narrative at least in the ball park of where I want it to be and post my ad. Now let's see who surfaces....