How to write a dating site ad in 7 easy steps!

So, after several weeks of absenteeism, I’m back…with good news! I’ve made a lot of changes in my life lately, and I find I’m not nearly as…well, bitter, might as well be honest, as I was when I started this. Even so, I think I’m saying some things that need to be said and need to be heard even more, so I’m going to keep going with it. As promised, I’m going to talk about how to write a dating site ad that actually gives you a chance of meeting someone who’s real and right up your alley in 7 easy steps!

(Note: All personal ads referenced herein were found on Craigslist.org, using pages from around the state of Utah as reference material. I have no relation to the posters of any of these ads and would appreciate if any mockery concerning the content of the referenced ads is restricted to this blog, to avoid potential problems such as possibly having to take down this post.)

1. Use a fucking dictionary.

Please note the cat didn’t bother to look up “wrong” either. Don’t be this guy…

Please, please, PLEASE!!!! If you don’t want to sound like a semiliterate baboon who’s just trying to lift another baboon’s tail, and you’re not absolutely certain how to spell a word, don’t fuck around and hope you get it right. Believe it or not, many women (and men) on dating sites actually do care about intelligence over the size of your junk or rack (more on this below). Of course, having a nice rack or big johnson doesn’t hurt anything, but unless all you want is a quick hookup, try to act like you’ve at least graduated from one of the better public school systems and present yourself accordingly.

Bonus tip: Text talk is strictly verboten, as are the dialects of ValSpeak, ditz, idiot, etc! “If, you like, wanna see more of me, like, text me! 😉 LOL!” “Uh, hey, not really sure what I’m looking for, but I know it, uh, involves a…vagina.” These are instant turnoffs that are absolutely guaranteed to get you nothing but a possible spot on Tosh.0. (Unless you really like Nigerian lonely-heart scams or those creepy guys that haven’t been out of their mom’s basement since 1997, in which case, hey. It’s your life and your business.)

2. Give your stats right off the bat.

Doesn’t sound like anyone I know…

For guys, stats should include your race or ethnicity, height, weight, hair and eye color, marital status, profession or vocation, whether you’re disease and drug-free (or DDF, in personal ad parlance) and your age. If you’re a smoker or drinker, you might want to include that. (Yes, that means weed too.) If you want to get flashy about it, include your religion, astrological sign, number of children and so on. Remember there is such a thing as too much information!

For ladies, stats should include race, marital status, age, hair and eye color and number of children. Y’all have a lot more options and generally need to do a lot less to get attention than guys. (Sorry to be semi-sexist here, but hey. Facts is facts. Women outnumber men 51%-49% on Match.com, which has become my personal gold standard for dating sites. No, this isn’t an ad, just so happens I tried it and it worked so well I’m currently dating and/or talking to three, yes THREE, different women. Thus women are much more likely to be approached than men, largely because women seem to be shier about making an introductory gambit than men are.)

3. Say exactly what you’re looking for.

Are you the one?

Being honest to the point of brutality will help you find the kind of person you want to be with, in both the pro and con arena. However, you don’t have to be rude, either. For example:

What I’m looking for is really simple: I want a woman who commits deeply, loves passionately and gives everything of herself. This woman doesn’t feel the need to text every conversation she has, but enjoys the intimacy and warmth of eye contact and verbal/nonverbal communication and doesn’t make simple conversations a trip to the dentist. The perfect woman for me is comfortable with her body and her desires and able to express them appropriately in any setting, adventurous but submissive in the bedroom, can speak and conduct herself well in most social situations and has just a little touch of geek in her 😉 . (Experience with MtG or OWoD is a big plus, but will accept Pathfinder etc.!) She doesn’t have to be eligible for the cover of Cosmo, but she’s healthy with no major medical issues and takes care of herself mentally and physically. She’s not afraid to speak her mind or shy to extend a tender hand when necessary, and she understands a relationship is a two-way street. She’s equally up for a quiet evening of cooking at home and cuddling or making love or a rowdy night on the town.

Not terribly particular on looks, but being a redhead/ginger is a HUGE +++++. All body types welcome to talk. I’m less interested in your body size/shape/etc. than your overall health (and, since I’m an honest guy, what you might elect to DO with your body…), sense of humor, and how in touch you are with your own femininity. (Prefer Caucasian, but will consider other ethnicity or race on a per-case basis.)

This one’s pretty specific, but not rude. It states flat-out that the guy’s willing to go further than the usages of a typical first date allow for but will respect a woman’s boundaries and desires. It says plainly what he wants and doesn’t want in a woman and makes it perfectly clear where his lines and deal-breakers are. It’s well-written, no misspellings, and doesn’t leave room for misunderstandings. He did indulge in an emoticon in there, but given the composition of the rest of it we’ll let that slide.

Compare to this gem (I threw up a little in my mouth writing that):

Greetings Female CL Viewer : Age 30-50
The issue of what you look like and what I look like can be a silly game especially for those of us that would never place our identity out there. So I found these old pictures for us to match our types to. Fortunately! I can say I look better than my sample.
Now that this is out of the way, and I know that you look like your sample we should talk about important things like escaping the Rif-Raf on CL. I have a plan! Do you?

Okay, it’s not horribly misspelled…but it doesn’t tell much about the guy, either. If anything, this ad screams “superficial douchebag.” The punctuation is dubious at best, “riff-raff” is not normally capitalized, and seriously. What the actual fuck does that last bit even mean???

This ad also breaks another cardinal rule…

4. Use a real picture. Of YOURSELF!

“I’m just as real as Photoshop can make me!”

If you’re on a dating site, chances are you might not feel all that attractive to begin with. This is perfectly understandable. Even so, using a fake picture is all but guaranteed to get you in trouble. If nothing else, what if you meet Mr. or Ms. Right (Now) and s/he wants to meet you? At best, it sends a pretty clear signal that you’re a creeper and probably not someone anyone of your preferred gender is going to want any part of.

Bonus tip: Don’t post naked pictures of yourself in a personal ad, unless you’re on FetLife or Adult Friend Finder. This only makes you look desperate and out for one thing. For ladies this isn’t that big a deal, because men do very much like to peruse the merchandise beforehand when and where possible. (However, if you’re any sort of a gentleman, you’ll wait for her to offer to send you naughty selfies instead of asking for one on first contact. Never underestimate the power of anticipation!) For guys, however, a dick pic in your ad can actually be a turnoff unless you’re looking to get every call girl and escort in three hundred miles pinging you.

This segues nicely into

5. Be honest!!!!

Never hurts to bear this in mind, either…

Many people can overlook just about anything if the physical attraction is strong enough, but cannot abide liars. If you didn’t make it past your junior year as a college undergrad, don’t act like you have a Ph.D. If you don’t actually make your living doing what you say you do, either omit it altogether or be upfront about the fact that you’re a short-order cook working your way through law school. If you’re a smoker who’s trying to quit, be real about it.

6. Have a friend look over your ad.

“You wrote this yourself, right?”

Okay, this part might be a little embarrassing, but would you rather have one person making fun of you or half the Internet world throwing rotten tomatoes at your ad? If you’ve got a close friend you can trust to keep their trap shut about what you’re up to, having an extra set of eyes can help you spot problems you didn’t notice and even make the ad sound a little better. This is especially helpful if you have a friend who’s rooting for you to find someone special.

7. Let your real voice out.

“Of course this is how I speak in real life!”

All of the above notwithstanding, the real you should show through in your ad. It may take a few drafts to get the wording just right and say what you need to say, but who and what you really are should be very apparent at every turn. If you want to find someone who’s real, you have to start by being real yourself. Sincerity and base intelligence counts for more in a personal ad than any number of hot pictures of yourself in a bathing suit (or less). Showing someone who you really are with your words makes it much more likely they’ll want to get to know you better!

“Can we meet?”

So there you have it. If you follow these steps and take some actual time and effort with your phrasing, you can attract the kind of woman (or man, don’t let’s be sexist here) you want to be with!

Next time: 6 unique first-date ideas that are inexpensive and sure to get you a second date!

6 Dead Giveaways That A Craigslist Dating Ad Is Fake

As promised, I’m going to talk about Craigslist, aka the absolute fucking nadir of online dating. Before I do that, though, I want to reply publicly to a comment my first post on this blog received.

See, when I wrote my first post, I was coming from the perspective of the dumpee. Not the dumper, not the player, and not the dickbag. I know there are women out there who play a straight game and just want someone who’s reasonably good in bed, somewhat mentally and financially stable and who has a cooking repertoire that isn’t limited to “Nuke. Eat. Toss.” There really are good guys out there, just like there are good women. I wasn’t talking to you good women and I wasn’t talking from the douchebag side of the aisle. I was talking specifically to you trifling-ass, game-playing broads who think it’s real cute and funny to give some poor jack-off juuuuust enough time and attention to keep him interested, only to push him away when it suits you. (Oh: And take some extra bitch points if you’re talking shit on him on social media at the same time you’re playing him for all he’s worth.)

Anyway, we good? We good. Okay, then. On with the show.

Let me tell you about Craigslist. And ladies, you might want to take some notes too, because I’m given to understand this happens to y’all as well.

You want to buy a couch or snag something for free, CL is a fairly handy place to know about. You can even pick up some less savory things, such as, erm, hookers. And those sometimes even come with a side of STIs. Just a little something to think about. But then, I’m sure not every person who posts an ad looking for sex or love is as pure as the driven snow either.

With that said, CL is absolutely abysmal as a resource for meeting someone or even getting laid. There are so many factors stacked against you it defies calculation, let alone belief. You’re better off saving up your pennies and going to the local bar, where at least you have a running shot of getting laid and a certainty you can walk out with a decent buzz. But if you’re really, really, REALLY desperate, I’m not going to hate on you. Just saying you should probably avoid it if you have any redeeming qualities whatsoever.

Like, say, a pulse and/or bladder and bowel control.

How it works

I hate fake shit. The only thing that will shrink my erection faster than breast implants (or, honestly, implants of any kind) are the words “I’m pregnant and I think you’re the daddy!” I don’t do fake people, fake food, or cheap knockoff imitations. So you can imagine my disgust when I realized about 98% of the women posting on CL are fakes, shills, and con artists.

They want to sell you something, usually by talking lonely guys into coughing up their credit card information for some bogus “dating verification site.” The next thing you know, you’ve got $100 or more in charges you didn’t think you authorized because you didn’t read the terms and conditions carefully (okay, okay: at all) and clicked the button that said “Please make me take out a fucking mortgage just for a chance to get a sniff!”

Spoiler: The second you email “her” (because to be completely fair it might not be a her at all) and say you’re on, you can expect to never hear back again. She got hers, and you got well and truly fucked. Have fun spending the next three days untangling the mess you just made of your finances in three seconds without explaining exactly how you wound up in said mess to begin with.

What to look for

Luckily there are some dead giveaways to help you spot a fake.

1. Ads without a clearly noted location.

This accounts for, as best I can figure, about 85% of all fake ads. Doesn’t mean the ads that do have clearly noted locations are completely legit, but they tend to be  slightly or significantly better in terms of literary quality.

2. “I want you NOW!”

Fake ads are written to imply this woman’s hot, willing and ready right NOW! You’ll see things like, “Letme rap my leggs around u n shove ur big cock inside my tite lil pussy!” (Yes, the grammar and spelling really, truly DO get that bad. I hurt my brain a little writing that.) If you’ve recently been lobotomized, you may not notice, but if you still have all your faculties, take three seconds and ask if you’re really willing to stick your dick in someone who can’t figure out the complex function of a, hmm, well, ya know, A FUCKING DICTIONARY??? If you are, I can’t blame you…but I reserve the right to point and laugh at you mercilessly. They’re called standards, folks. Getcha some.

3. The pic doesn’t look quite right.

You know those alleged “selfies” that feature a girl wearing a whole lot of nothing much aiming her phone at a mirror, but the angle’s just a little off? This should be a giant red flag emblazoned with a radiation symbol. You’ll usually see these in the email after you respond. When you get one of those, I’ll bet you a month’s salary someone else took that pic.

4. The language isn’t quite right.

Okay, I get that texting is ruining the English language as we know and understand it. I also know the public school system ain’t what it used to be when I was coming up. However, if you simply must answer a particular ad because she says she just adores the feeling of having man-gravy shot all over her face while her cat licks Nutella from her nipples, read the email carefully. If it sounds like it was written by a machine or someone with a third-grade education who’s had a medium-grade stroke, it’s probably fake or “spun” content, which is easy to spot because of all the grammatical oddities that crop up. At the very least it was probably written by someone who has no understanding of the function of condoms and is going to have to rely on you to figure out where your junk goes. This is where that fake selfie will most likely show up.

5. “If I’m going to let you into my life, I need to know you’re not a psycho.”

Here’s the scam I talked about earlier in all its ugly glory. She may be well-spoken and give you the impression she spent some actual time on her email. But then comes the “dating verification.” If you’re at all skeptical about the link (and you should be, because you have more than two firing brain cells and are not ruled by your glands) Google it. I can just about guarantee any link you see takes you to a premium dating site that you’ll pay through the nose for. Kinda defeats the purpose of looking for free poon on CL, don’t it?

Him: “We can meet for coffee, you know.”

(Long, silent pause…)
Her: “…Look. Just put in your credit card so I can get on the next 16 loners with boners I have to scam today to make my quota, ‘kay?”

In these cases, I have a stock reply I send. (Yes, I made a template specifically for dealing with spammers. If they can do it, so can I.) The reply reads:

You’re very pretty and I’d like to get to know you better, but I do not under any circumstances give out my credit card information to businesses I don’t know anything about. If you’d like to call me and/or meet in a public place our first time, that’s fine. If that’s a deal breaker, I understand. However, if you insist on pressing the “dating verification” issue, I’m going to assume you are a spammer and report you accordingly. (Pro tip: This doesn’t do any good, as far as I can tell, but at least it usually makes whoever’s on the other end think twice about how hard they want to push the issue.)

It sounds like Shakespeare, but it FEELS like THIS!

6. Recurring email addresses and pics

If you do this often enough, you’ll notice recurring email addresses and…hey, that pic looks really, really familiar, too… One I found that showed up with disturbing regularity was “80s musakrocks @ gmail.com.” If you keep seeing the same email addresses over and over again in response to ads from women of 16 different alleged ethnicities, backgrounds and ages, guess what? You’re getting spammed.

This doesn’t mean all the ads on CL are fake by any means, or that there’s exactly zero chance of meeting someone for a hookup or something longer-term. However, consider CL as a last desperate resort to not have to spend Saturday night alone and put in a little work during the week to make that happen. Better still, post your own ad and wait for them to come to you. You’re still going to get spammed, but you’ll get a lot less of it and it makes it a lot more likely that a decent weekend date can find you.

Next time:  How to write a dating site ad that gives you a decent chance of finding someone real in 7 easy steps!

*Yes. I know it’s misspelled. That was the joke…

Welcome to Ravings Of A Lonely Utah Man, and the 5 REAL Stages Of A Breakup From The Man’s Perspective

I’m not going to tell you who I am right now. That time will come. Maybe.

What I am going to tell you is that I’m someone who’s been way too lonely for way too long. This is a sort of online journal for my (mis)adventures in trying to heal a broken heart. I say (mis) because, let’s face it, I’m a guy and so I’ll probably fuck this up at least 20 times before I get it right. But, hey, there’s an upside for you in this, because you get to see it all play out more or less as it happens!

So, let’s start at the beginning.

My ex-girlfriend and I broke up in October. I moved out, found my own place, and life moved on. Unfortunately for me, I met a really, REALLY great woman immediately after. Like, that same week.

What I saw…

Who thought I was great for a whole…week.

Can we guess where this is going?

In case you can’t, I’m going to completely spoil the plot for you right off the bat, because my blog, my rules. I fell completely, utterly head-over-heels in love with this woman. Was she perfect? No. Did I think she was perfect for me? Yeah. Yeah, I did. Spent almost four months in celibacy to prove I love her. Result?

*insert crickets sound effect here*

Actually, that’s not fair or true. The crickets would actually have been BETTER than what I got. I’ll let you do the math on that one…

…And what she turned out to REALLY be like…

Anyway, I’m trying to get over her. She’s an angel, a goddess among women, a freaking world wonder. Who barely knows or cares that I’m alive and bleeding out over her every day. Welcome to the world of a walking, talking punchline. And I decided, hey, misery loves company, right? I can’t be the only non-LDS guy in the entire fucking state of Utah that’s struggled with something like this, but when the place you live is 70% Mormon and you’re…well, not…guess what your dating pool looks like?

I’m not jumping in there. My skull ain’t much, but I’d prefer it to stay intact…

So I decided to chronicle my adventures in dating and trying to recover from a broken heart. I don’t know where this is going to go. However, what I do know is every single man reading this is going to do this:

and say, “Yup…”

And many (but not all, because some of you know just how ratched most of your species can be) of the women who read this are going to try to do this:

Heh. Number of fucks given: -3. You don’t get to set the rules and get mad when we play by them, girls. Sorry.

No, only kidding. Not only am I really not sorry, but I’m laughing my ass off imagining some of the looks this screen is getting right now.

Okay, so on to the good stuff. Here are the 5 stages of a breakup from a man’s point of view. Please note there will be some overlap. Guys aren’t as simple as you women would like to make us out to be, and we’re perfectly capable of feeling some or all of these at the same time. If you’re reading this and feeling where I’m coming from, you must be a guy. If you’re reading this and getting offended, you’re probably a woman who’s treated a man who loved you like shit. Put on your big girl panties and get the fuck over it. Guess you should’ve recognized what you had to begin with.

1. The sappy love song/drinking his face off stage

“I miss her so goddamn much…”

He’s listening to things you never, ever knew or even suspected existed in his music library, like that really depressing song from the Grease 2 soundtrack, “My First Night Without You” by Cyndi Lauper, or just about anything by George Jones. He might have a little Mariah Carey or Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam mixed in for flavor. He listens to this stuff until his neighbors are banging on his floor with broom handles because they live right below him, it’s 3:00in the goddamn and he’s got it cranked up so no one can hear him sobbing. If he gets enough liquor in him, he’s probably singing along, too. If you can think of him doing that to himself and still go to sleep tonight, I’m not even going to try to break it to you gently: You’re a heartless bitch.

2. The “I’m going to fuck my way through the phone book” stage

And not just the local phone book. Every phone book on planet Earth. Every. Last. One.

He’s pissed off that you couldn’t see what he was worth and he’s going to rail every semi-available female within 100 astronomical units of his home address just to prove he doesn’t need your trifling ass. You’re the one who lost out here, not him, and he’s going to Dirty Sanchez every woman he can get within five feet of to prove it. The filthier, nastier and dirtier the sex is the better, and he gives less than -5 fucks about you finding out what he’s up to. In fact, if there’s any bleedover from stage 1 or alcohol left in his spot, he might very well leave you a detailed Facebook message explaining exactly what he did, who he did it with, how long he did it for, how much she begged for it and how YOU never made him come like that.

3. The “I’m depressed and going to drink my face off because I miss her” stage

There are really only two ways this can go. Neither of them are pretty…

“Not only do I NOT care, tonight I’m gonna get so fucked up everyone in this quadrant of the GALAXY’s gon’ know I don’t care!”

Post-coital depression sets in, and he’s back to the bottle and the sappy love songs. Except now he’s probably writing you poetry in languages you don’t even speak hoping to get your attention. Or he’s working a pole at the local watering hole and making it perfectly clear he doesn’t give a shit about you or anyone who shares your name, skin color, hair color, birth month or state/country/planet of origin. Which he doesn’t, until he wakes up the next morning with dicks drawn on his face and a serious case of morning-after social media regret, because all his buddies and whatever skanks they’re hanging with this week decided it would be a really great idea (Pro tip: It’s really not, and if you’re really, really sure it is, take 6 free dickbag points and consider your thinking privileges revoked until further notice starting now.) to capture the moment for the whole fucking Internet to see. Oh, and the “No, you can’t come back in here for at least six months” from the last three places he hit while barhopping last night is going to make him feel really great about himself, too.

4. The “I’m okay” stage

He’s lying his ass off to everyone in the world, starting with himself. If he’s to this point, he’s not okay by any yardstick anyone in this universe is familiar with. This is him trying to salvage his pride and save what little face he has left with his friends right now after weeks or months of being a morose douchebag, which isn’t really his fault because YOU dumped his sad ass. (And I’m still wondering how the hell you sleep at night knowing this…) He still wakes up reaching for you and he still cries over you, but thankfully it only happens about once every two hours instead of once every thirty fucking seconds.

5. The “I found someone” stage

“She’s cuter, younger, hotter, nicer and tighter than you, she does yoga, loves anal and she can give head for HOURS without coming up for air. Oh. And she SWALLOWS! Have a nice life, baby! 🙂 “

At this point, you’ve got exactly 36 hours to get your head around just how badly you fucked up and work out a bulletproof, can’t-miss method of getting him back. Beyond the 36-hour window, you can consider yourself officially and irrevocably kicked to the curb, sweetie. Once he’s reached this stage, you’re on the endangered species as far as his giving a shit about you or your feelings goes. Your options are to figure out how to win him back before your replacement gets a chance to really get her hooks in, or delete him from all your friend lists, lose his email, phone number and address, and see if the Vatican’s looking for any novice nuns in Uruguay or some other place he can’t spell and has never expressed any desire to see or experience. Ever.

There’s my first rant for the new blog. I can’t wait to see the responses. Guys: Don’t be the guy described above. I’ve been there, done that, and I promise you the field research proves it’s not worth it. I suggest you skip stages 1 and 3 and go straight to 2 and 4 which will inevitably lead you to 5. Ladies, if you’re pissed off about what you’re seeing here, you should probably get your head out of your ass and realize that guy whose feelings you just crushed still loves you, but you’ve got some serious shit to make up for and the shot clock’s running. Get busy or get gone, your choice.

Next time: (Mis)adventures in dating on Craigslist and why it’s a really, really dumb idea! 😀

*Please note that I do not own any of the images contained herein and all images are displayed solely for purposes of illustration and humor/satire. If you are the owner of any images herein and would like them removed, a simple comment with “please remove my image” will suffice. No need to get lawyers or any other craziness involved, m’kay?*