Please Tell Me about Pre-internet Personals Ads
February 9, 2023 8:18 AM Subscribe
I've always been fascinated by the personal ads of the pre-internet times and I bet there are people here on Metafilter who could tell me more about what the practical experience of using them was actually like.
One basic question i have is, if you saw a personals ad that piqued your interest, how would you get ahold of the person? would you then talk on the phone for awhile the way people on apps text eachother forever without meeting up? How much did they cost? How often would you re-write them?
Any and all links or research tips welcome :) Thank you, Metafilter :)
One basic question i have is, if you saw a personals ad that piqued your interest, how would you get ahold of the person? would you then talk on the phone for awhile the way people on apps text eachother forever without meeting up? How much did they cost? How often would you re-write them?
Any and all links or research tips welcome :) Thank you, Metafilter :)
Yes, I've done this.
For my local paper, if an ad interested you, you sent a letter to a box number at the paper and the paper forwarded it to the person who wrote the ad. In that letter, you gave your contact information and the person had the option of contacting you or not. My paper also added an option where the person who wrote the ad could leave a voice recording giving more information and you could respond with a voice recording giving your contact information. People weren't really using email for this in the late 80s - at least where I was.
One man I ended up dating for a while said he received some perfumed letters.
The first contact was generally a phone call with some chatting, but was mostly about setting up a meeting. There were two cases where the chatting led me to decide not to meet up with the person (tip for guys: don't tell single Moms you're angry at Bill Clinton because somehow it was his fault that you couldn't see your daughter because of your failure to pay child support). I can't imagine just chatting on the first phone call without planning to meet. After the first meeting, it was more like regular dating where you saw each other again or you didn't.
As I recall, a short ad was free to place and there was no charge for responding. Longer ads cost something, but I don't remember what.
posted by FencingGal at 8:36 AM on February 9, 2023 [8 favorites]
For my local paper, if an ad interested you, you sent a letter to a box number at the paper and the paper forwarded it to the person who wrote the ad. In that letter, you gave your contact information and the person had the option of contacting you or not. My paper also added an option where the person who wrote the ad could leave a voice recording giving more information and you could respond with a voice recording giving your contact information. People weren't really using email for this in the late 80s - at least where I was.
One man I ended up dating for a while said he received some perfumed letters.
The first contact was generally a phone call with some chatting, but was mostly about setting up a meeting. There were two cases where the chatting led me to decide not to meet up with the person (tip for guys: don't tell single Moms you're angry at Bill Clinton because somehow it was his fault that you couldn't see your daughter because of your failure to pay child support). I can't imagine just chatting on the first phone call without planning to meet. After the first meeting, it was more like regular dating where you saw each other again or you didn't.
As I recall, a short ad was free to place and there was no charge for responding. Longer ads cost something, but I don't remember what.
posted by FencingGal at 8:36 AM on February 9, 2023 [8 favorites]
My grandfather placed one in the NY Review of Books sometime in the 1970s, and described himself as "gumpy eyed" - presumably he also said a few more positive things about himself, because he did succeed in meeting his second wife.
I do know he kept the length pretty short though to keep the cost low - so whatever the precise cost was, it was high enough to make some people want to economize. The NYRB handled the communication - or at least, anyone interested would need to contact a non-personal address/phone number. I don't believe he ever re-wrote his ad.
posted by coffeecat at 8:48 AM on February 9, 2023 [4 favorites]
I do know he kept the length pretty short though to keep the cost low - so whatever the precise cost was, it was high enough to make some people want to economize. The NYRB handled the communication - or at least, anyone interested would need to contact a non-personal address/phone number. I don't believe he ever re-wrote his ad.
posted by coffeecat at 8:48 AM on February 9, 2023 [4 favorites]
In the late 80's I was on Aline, which was a gateway to the French Minitel system. I used one social app, it let people post short profiles, and you could send messages and do realtime chats. The app I think was a small per minute fee if you were in France. Aline had a pretty steep hourly cost, might have been more than compuserve ($10/hour?) I forgot how much it was. I think accessing the app was covered by Aline's fee. People in France often accessed it from work computers so they didn't have to pay.
I met a woman on there, spent a few weeks typing to each other, then phone calls, a few letters with pictures, then she came for a month.
posted by Sophont at 8:50 AM on February 9, 2023 [7 favorites]
I met a woman on there, spent a few weeks typing to each other, then phone calls, a few letters with pictures, then she came for a month.
posted by Sophont at 8:50 AM on February 9, 2023 [7 favorites]
You might find Shapely Ankle Preferr'd by Francesca Beauman useful, it's a history of personal ads from 1695 up to 2010.
posted by terretu at 8:59 AM on February 9, 2023 [22 favorites]
posted by terretu at 8:59 AM on February 9, 2023 [22 favorites]
There used to be a video dating service in my city. You went down there, filled out a form and recorded a short video of introduction. Then you got to view videos recorded by others and make your selection.
The service went out of business after it was revealed that every Friday, the dating service staff would get together for drinks and watch the videos to mock the "losers" that came in that week.
posted by SPrintF at 9:02 AM on February 9, 2023 [6 favorites]
The service went out of business after it was revealed that every Friday, the dating service staff would get together for drinks and watch the videos to mock the "losers" that came in that week.
posted by SPrintF at 9:02 AM on February 9, 2023 [6 favorites]
My wife of 20 years and I met via a personals ad she put up in the Baltimore City Paper, back in 1996.
She wrote an ad, put in the paper, I forget how much it was. I read it, thought it sounded interesting, called the number in the ad and left a message, including one where i left my number. She called me, introduced herself, we talked two or three times, then decided to meet up.
I went to her house to pick her up, where her entire inner circle of family and friends were playing cards, obviously so they could physically see me, my car, and get a general read on me. We were together about 25 years, married for 20, before she passed away.
She wrote her ad with the help of good male friend of hers who helped her highlight her strong points. Interesting point is that there was no internet, so we didn't know what each other looked like physically until we actually met. However she always said when she first heard my voice on the phone message that she was going to marry me, it just a thing, you know?
My current girlfriend I and met via Bumble, the online dating App, where she had an interesting ad that indicated she was my type personality wise, along with photos that I found attractive. Interestingly enough, a male friend also assisted her a bit, along with a few female friends.
I messaged her, we chatted for a few minutes, and then decided to meet up that day for a coffee date. It was Saturday, we were both free and both believed that spending too much texting or phone talking was wasted time, it's the physical interactions that matter, hence the quick, low key meeting.
Before we got off the phone I made sure she knew my full name and number and I got hers. We Googled each other (as we later revealed), just to make sure we were real and our stories matched what we had said. We met in a very public place and talked and quickly became attached.
I rewrote my ad several times before and after posting, trying to highlight who I am and what sort of woman I wanted to attract. I was new to dating again, so it was hard to think in those terms, but evidently managed to convey it!
Then there was the agonizing over what photos to post, then oh let me take more recent photos etc etc.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:24 AM on February 9, 2023 [42 favorites]
She wrote an ad, put in the paper, I forget how much it was. I read it, thought it sounded interesting, called the number in the ad and left a message, including one where i left my number. She called me, introduced herself, we talked two or three times, then decided to meet up.
I went to her house to pick her up, where her entire inner circle of family and friends were playing cards, obviously so they could physically see me, my car, and get a general read on me. We were together about 25 years, married for 20, before she passed away.
She wrote her ad with the help of good male friend of hers who helped her highlight her strong points. Interesting point is that there was no internet, so we didn't know what each other looked like physically until we actually met. However she always said when she first heard my voice on the phone message that she was going to marry me, it just a thing, you know?
My current girlfriend I and met via Bumble, the online dating App, where she had an interesting ad that indicated she was my type personality wise, along with photos that I found attractive. Interestingly enough, a male friend also assisted her a bit, along with a few female friends.
I messaged her, we chatted for a few minutes, and then decided to meet up that day for a coffee date. It was Saturday, we were both free and both believed that spending too much texting or phone talking was wasted time, it's the physical interactions that matter, hence the quick, low key meeting.
Before we got off the phone I made sure she knew my full name and number and I got hers. We Googled each other (as we later revealed), just to make sure we were real and our stories matched what we had said. We met in a very public place and talked and quickly became attached.
I rewrote my ad several times before and after posting, trying to highlight who I am and what sort of woman I wanted to attract. I was new to dating again, so it was hard to think in those terms, but evidently managed to convey it!
Then there was the agonizing over what photos to post, then oh let me take more recent photos etc etc.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:24 AM on February 9, 2023 [42 favorites]
I advertised in 1976 and gave my phone number. A gentleman called wanting to know what size underwear I used. So not much different than todayđź‘‹
posted by Peach at 9:25 AM on February 9, 2023 [21 favorites]
posted by Peach at 9:25 AM on February 9, 2023 [21 favorites]
In the early 90s the local weekly (Riverfront Times) had personals pages. The way I remember it working was that you'd submit an ad and they'd print it with an ID or number and you'd call a number and leave a voicemail for them. Here's some examples that were similar from the Detroit Metro Times.
I think there was a 900 number involved in leaving voicemails or something like that. There was definitely a hook where it was easy to place an ad for free but they got a cut if you were responding to people.
However it worked, yeah, you'd get on the phone and talk a little or a lot. If that went well then you'd meet somewhere and have a coffee or a date.
I probably went on 10 dates that way. Didn't find my soulmate. Learned not to book a whole day type date. I suffered through a couple activities at the St. Louis Art Museum and dinner dates that could've been a coffee date.
It was kind of electric getting a response after waiting for your ad to show up in the paper, waiting for someone to call or leave you a voicemail. (I recall checking for voicemails obsessively at first.)
I hope all the people I met found the right person and are as happy with their person (or people, I don't judge) as I am with my wife. It only took me another (checks watch) 24 years to meet her.
posted by jzb at 9:43 AM on February 9, 2023 [8 favorites]
I think there was a 900 number involved in leaving voicemails or something like that. There was definitely a hook where it was easy to place an ad for free but they got a cut if you were responding to people.
However it worked, yeah, you'd get on the phone and talk a little or a lot. If that went well then you'd meet somewhere and have a coffee or a date.
I probably went on 10 dates that way. Didn't find my soulmate. Learned not to book a whole day type date. I suffered through a couple activities at the St. Louis Art Museum and dinner dates that could've been a coffee date.
It was kind of electric getting a response after waiting for your ad to show up in the paper, waiting for someone to call or leave you a voicemail. (I recall checking for voicemails obsessively at first.)
I hope all the people I met found the right person and are as happy with their person (or people, I don't judge) as I am with my wife. It only took me another (checks watch) 24 years to meet her.
posted by jzb at 9:43 AM on February 9, 2023 [8 favorites]
I placed an ad in a local free singles magazine, which IIRC was printed monthly and just had ads, in 1996. I don't recall how much it cost, but it certainly wasn't very much. Maybe $10? For that, I got the print ad and a voice mailbox for which I could record an outgoing message. People who responded left a message and their phone number and it was my choice whether to follow up or not.
One response, in particular, I followed up on. We had a lengthy phone conversation, and made plans to meet a few weeks later. Our first date was, by all accounts, a rousing success and we've been happily married for 25 years.
posted by DrGail at 9:49 AM on February 9, 2023 [11 favorites]
One response, in particular, I followed up on. We had a lengthy phone conversation, and made plans to meet a few weeks later. Our first date was, by all accounts, a rousing success and we've been happily married for 25 years.
posted by DrGail at 9:49 AM on February 9, 2023 [11 favorites]
My hometown alternative weekly, the Chicago Reader, had what they called "personals" ads that were not for people looking for dates (though they had that too). They were in-jokes between friends, cries for help, messages of thanks to St Jude, perhaps coded messages from spies. Always bewildering and entertaining to read.
posted by adamrice at 10:14 AM on February 9, 2023 [10 favorites]
posted by adamrice at 10:14 AM on February 9, 2023 [10 favorites]
This is where all modern abbreviations were invented, because you were charged by the line and had to shorten everything. SWF, SWM, SJF, MWM sks SWM, SBF, SAF, or BBW, or ...
posted by Melismata at 10:28 AM on February 9, 2023 [10 favorites]
posted by Melismata at 10:28 AM on February 9, 2023 [10 favorites]
Also, what Peach said.
posted by Melismata at 10:29 AM on February 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Melismata at 10:29 AM on February 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
A lot of the alt-weekly papers had two different sections of personals pages — one was for "normal, decent" people to advertise looking for love or friendship. The other was raunchy, people looking for all kinds of kink, plus a lot of ads for phone sex numbers, x-rated video shops and the like. In some cases, the latter section was printed in such a way as to be easily removable, so you could pick up the paper, throw out that section, and take it home without worrying about your kids seeing it.
posted by beagle at 10:56 AM on February 9, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by beagle at 10:56 AM on February 9, 2023 [4 favorites]
Response by poster: follow up questions- how, if at all were ads categorized? would you have age ranges or neighborhoods or any other classifications for what you might be seeking?
posted by wowenthusiast at 11:28 AM on February 9, 2023
posted by wowenthusiast at 11:28 AM on February 9, 2023
In my experience, ads were classified as Men Seeking Women, Women Seeking Men, Men Seeking Men, and Women Seeking Women. There might have been one for people seeking friends, but I'm not sure (the "friends with benefits" thing didn't really exist). Any age ranges were in the ads themselves. There were no neighborhoods, but this was in a city of about 100,000. Maybe larger cities had more location-specific classifications.
posted by FencingGal at 11:38 AM on February 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by FencingGal at 11:38 AM on February 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
Some of the alt-weekly are available for online browsing via the Internet Archive, for instance here is the Boston Phoenix. . In this issue, you'll find "regular" dating ads on pages 93-95, as numbered in the app, followed by the erotic section which runs from 96 to 112. (The actual page numbers on those pages suggest that this was an example of the removable erotic section as described above.)
There are probably other alt-weeklies on Internet Archive, but at the moment I'm not finding an easy way to search for them. Try finding a list of alts and putting them into the search function.
posted by beagle at 12:33 PM on February 9, 2023 [6 favorites]
There are probably other alt-weeklies on Internet Archive, but at the moment I'm not finding an easy way to search for them. Try finding a list of alts and putting them into the search function.
posted by beagle at 12:33 PM on February 9, 2023 [6 favorites]
IIRC, there was a "just friends" category for the alt-weekly that were where I lived (Seattle Weekly/The Stranger) as well as "missed connections" that used the same real estate. The POTUSA song "Stranger Show" is based on the name of The Stranger column for these missed connections. All the lyrics are from actual personals.
posted by jessamyn at 12:40 PM on February 9, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by jessamyn at 12:40 PM on February 9, 2023 [3 favorites]
The best personal ads ever, in The London Review of Books, is usually just an unordered list of ads which might have M or F, describing the seeker or the seeked, and an age. Or something else. Maybe a place. Or nothing.
posted by transient at 1:05 PM on February 9, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by transient at 1:05 PM on February 9, 2023 [2 favorites]
I sent an ad to our local paper in the late 80s and the only way for people to respond was by letter. I distinctly remember sitting in a chair, reading dozens of letters that were forwarded to me in a big fat envelope from the paper. In retrospect, it seems so weird.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 1:53 PM on February 9, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 1:53 PM on February 9, 2023 [4 favorites]
I did not place an advert myself but I know how it worked in Houston for our alt-weekly in the mid to late 90s. To bulk up their page count and get people to read classified adverts in general, the paper hosted singles mixers that were "free" if you placed a "free" classified dating advert. This resulted in a lot of well-lubricated and somewhat funny dating adverts.
When I was freshly divorced in 1996, it was the habit of my new gaming group to read some of these ads at the post D&D meal while we were waiting on service (see: well-lubricated & funny). This culminated in a social disaster when I randomly ran across an ad my ex-husband had placed at one of these mixers and correctly identified him. Massive drama ensued in our mutual friend group. You would not think the city of Houston was that small of a town, but it was!
posted by gentlyepigrams at 2:38 PM on February 9, 2023 [7 favorites]
When I was freshly divorced in 1996, it was the habit of my new gaming group to read some of these ads at the post D&D meal while we were waiting on service (see: well-lubricated & funny). This culminated in a social disaster when I randomly ran across an ad my ex-husband had placed at one of these mixers and correctly identified him. Massive drama ensued in our mutual friend group. You would not think the city of Houston was that small of a town, but it was!
posted by gentlyepigrams at 2:38 PM on February 9, 2023 [7 favorites]
Just making sure you know about They Call Me Naughty Lola: Personal Ads from the London Review of Books.
posted by MonkeyToes at 3:06 PM on February 9, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by MonkeyToes at 3:06 PM on February 9, 2023 [3 favorites]
Just after graduating college, in the mid 80s, I had an ad in Bay Windows, a local gay weekly in Boston. I got assigned a box number. When someone responded, they would send their letter to Bay Windows, Box #. Then I could either go and pick up the responses or pay to have them forwarded to me. Since I was living just a few blocks from the paper's office, I would just go and pick up the responses every few days after the ad ran. I got everything from very nicely written introductions to dick pics to requests to buy my underwear and socks to Christian conversion pamphlets. Some guys included their phone numbers, others gave their return address, and some just sent something with no way to contact them back. I met a number of nice guys.
posted by hworth at 4:09 PM on February 9, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by hworth at 4:09 PM on February 9, 2023 [5 favorites]
The movie Desperately Seeking Susan makes use of personal ads as a key plot device. It's a fun movie starring early Madonna.
posted by SyraCarol at 5:31 PM on February 9, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by SyraCarol at 5:31 PM on February 9, 2023 [3 favorites]
I remember a certain gay paper at one point had three sections in their personal section - lesbian, and HIV neg and HIV pos. This was when treatments and testing had begun to be available, and if you tested pos you figured you likely had several months to years to live. Plenty of guys still wanted to date, and were very glad to screen out anyone who was not testing positive, without having an awkward conversation first.
Keep in mind that the personal ads were originally often not just for seeking partners. You might post an ad inquiring if anyone in the neighborhood had observed a traffic accident "SIMONDS STREET Anyone seeing an erratic driver on Friday morning between Waterloo and Pearling please write to Box 344" or had information you needed, "May 14th EVANDALE FERRY, please contact if you were on the second morning run..." or for a missed connection, "Will the young lady wearing a brown velvet hat that got off the 126 bus please contact Box 234, as the young gentleman who found her umbrella would like to tell her he admires her very much," or 'Will person who persuaded young boy to exchange valuable new bicycle for metal apple on August 20 please contact Box XXX'.
Personal ads didn't even need to have a post office box number. One pathetic advertisement was worded, "Mother, come home. All is forgiven." They were used to track down missing people so often that in Britain they were known as the agony column. "Will anyone knowing the recent whereabouts of Mr. James Selkirk, aged 56 or thereabouts, please get in touch with PO Box..."
Back in the day only a few people had a land line, and no one had cell phones. Even the police had to use call boxes to call for back up, or to request an ambulance; the fire department had call boxes at major corners. You just pulled the lever down and an alarm rang at the station. They wouldn't know who had pulled the lever, just that there was an emergency at that particular location. Getting in touch with people was hard.
So if your nephew had an itinerant job chances are you'd never try to call him. Only expensive hotels had phones. Cheap boarding houses probably didn't. But it was difficult to keep up a regular correspondence, as often letters sent to any of his known addresses would be sent back as undelivered. At that point the personal column was a good bet, because everyone read them, frequently out loud to each other. They could be highly entertaining. Drama, anguish, anger: "Teddy, never, ever, ever try to speak to me again. Louisa." What do you think Teddy had done? It was as good as a soap opera. Whatever it was, clearly Louisa was going to find a new beau.
And of course there were also scams. "TO THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE: On account of the bequest of the late Ezekiah Hopkins, of Lebanon, Pa., U. S. A., there is now another vacancy open which entitles a member of the League to a salary of four pounds a week for purely nominal services. All red-headed men who are sound in body and mind and above the age of twenty-one years are eligible. Apply in person on Monday, at eleven o'clock, to Duncan Ross, at the offices of the League, 7 Pope's Court, Fleet Street."
There were a LOT of missing person personal ads in the papers in Britain during the Blitz. If you didn't hear from your friend for a couple of weeks and couldn't get through using the phone (if they had one, the lines were often down because of the bombing), you would go around to knock on the door. You might find the house with all the glass blown out and the rain streaming down inside. "Mary, Harry or George F. Wimstead, please contact Aunt Ruth, PUT4360."
Mary, Harry and George F might have been killed, or simply have taken to living in a public shelter as many did, or they might have been billeted somewhere miles away; On their end of things, especially if the house had been hit by an incendiary, they could easily have lost all the contact information they had for their relatives or friends, particularly if those friends and relatives had also recently had to relocate within the same badly bombed neighborhood. Aunt Ruth might have lived at the same number in Pullwain Street for 51 years until October 1940, and then had four different addresses in the next three months. So the Wimsteads might well place their own personal advertisement trying to find her. "Auntie Ruth: Harold, George and Mary W. are all well. Now living in Hampstead Blicken. Please write immediately, Box 622A" (My family lost track of two sets of second cousins during the Blitz and never found out if they lived or died. They probably lived but we will never know.)
posted by Jane the Brown at 5:48 PM on February 9, 2023 [11 favorites]
Keep in mind that the personal ads were originally often not just for seeking partners. You might post an ad inquiring if anyone in the neighborhood had observed a traffic accident "SIMONDS STREET Anyone seeing an erratic driver on Friday morning between Waterloo and Pearling please write to Box 344" or had information you needed, "May 14th EVANDALE FERRY, please contact if you were on the second morning run..." or for a missed connection, "Will the young lady wearing a brown velvet hat that got off the 126 bus please contact Box 234, as the young gentleman who found her umbrella would like to tell her he admires her very much," or 'Will person who persuaded young boy to exchange valuable new bicycle for metal apple on August 20 please contact Box XXX'.
Personal ads didn't even need to have a post office box number. One pathetic advertisement was worded, "Mother, come home. All is forgiven." They were used to track down missing people so often that in Britain they were known as the agony column. "Will anyone knowing the recent whereabouts of Mr. James Selkirk, aged 56 or thereabouts, please get in touch with PO Box..."
Back in the day only a few people had a land line, and no one had cell phones. Even the police had to use call boxes to call for back up, or to request an ambulance; the fire department had call boxes at major corners. You just pulled the lever down and an alarm rang at the station. They wouldn't know who had pulled the lever, just that there was an emergency at that particular location. Getting in touch with people was hard.
So if your nephew had an itinerant job chances are you'd never try to call him. Only expensive hotels had phones. Cheap boarding houses probably didn't. But it was difficult to keep up a regular correspondence, as often letters sent to any of his known addresses would be sent back as undelivered. At that point the personal column was a good bet, because everyone read them, frequently out loud to each other. They could be highly entertaining. Drama, anguish, anger: "Teddy, never, ever, ever try to speak to me again. Louisa." What do you think Teddy had done? It was as good as a soap opera. Whatever it was, clearly Louisa was going to find a new beau.
And of course there were also scams. "TO THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE: On account of the bequest of the late Ezekiah Hopkins, of Lebanon, Pa., U. S. A., there is now another vacancy open which entitles a member of the League to a salary of four pounds a week for purely nominal services. All red-headed men who are sound in body and mind and above the age of twenty-one years are eligible. Apply in person on Monday, at eleven o'clock, to Duncan Ross, at the offices of the League, 7 Pope's Court, Fleet Street."
There were a LOT of missing person personal ads in the papers in Britain during the Blitz. If you didn't hear from your friend for a couple of weeks and couldn't get through using the phone (if they had one, the lines were often down because of the bombing), you would go around to knock on the door. You might find the house with all the glass blown out and the rain streaming down inside. "Mary, Harry or George F. Wimstead, please contact Aunt Ruth, PUT4360."
Mary, Harry and George F might have been killed, or simply have taken to living in a public shelter as many did, or they might have been billeted somewhere miles away; On their end of things, especially if the house had been hit by an incendiary, they could easily have lost all the contact information they had for their relatives or friends, particularly if those friends and relatives had also recently had to relocate within the same badly bombed neighborhood. Aunt Ruth might have lived at the same number in Pullwain Street for 51 years until October 1940, and then had four different addresses in the next three months. So the Wimsteads might well place their own personal advertisement trying to find her. "Auntie Ruth: Harold, George and Mary W. are all well. Now living in Hampstead Blicken. Please write immediately, Box 622A" (My family lost track of two sets of second cousins during the Blitz and never found out if they lived or died. They probably lived but we will never know.)
posted by Jane the Brown at 5:48 PM on February 9, 2023 [11 favorites]
The previously mentioned Chicago Reader had a nice "where are they now" article about their Matches section in 2021: Like Tinder in Print
posted by paradeofblimps at 12:01 PM on February 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by paradeofblimps at 12:01 PM on February 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
I responded to a few personal ads in the (UK) Guardian's Soulmates section in the late 1990s. I think it was probably a service operated by another company which different newspapers/mags could then market their own version of.
There were very short ads every Saturday, divided into categories like FencingGal said. It was hard to find ads that stood out as likely, distinctive, candidates, based on so few words.
Having found an ad to respond to, I think you would phone an "0898" phone number - which cost quite a bit per minute - and listen to a message the advertiser had left. You'd then leave them a message (and, for me, keep having to re-record it until it wasn't too embarrassing). I guess you'd leave your phone number and hope they called back.
I met up with three women I think. Each time we'd have at least one, probably more, conversations before agreeing to meet up somewhere in central London for dinner or coffee.
Note that at that point, neither of you knew what the other person looked like. There were no camera phones, not a lot of digital cameras, etc.
Two dates were... not awful, but things clearly weren't going to go any further for either side. The other one, we became friends for a while after.
Fwiw, the LRB ended its personal ads in 2010. It still has a small handful each issue but they're quite conventional compared to the pre-2010 ones.
posted by fabius at 5:35 AM on February 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
There were very short ads every Saturday, divided into categories like FencingGal said. It was hard to find ads that stood out as likely, distinctive, candidates, based on so few words.
Having found an ad to respond to, I think you would phone an "0898" phone number - which cost quite a bit per minute - and listen to a message the advertiser had left. You'd then leave them a message (and, for me, keep having to re-record it until it wasn't too embarrassing). I guess you'd leave your phone number and hope they called back.
I met up with three women I think. Each time we'd have at least one, probably more, conversations before agreeing to meet up somewhere in central London for dinner or coffee.
Note that at that point, neither of you knew what the other person looked like. There were no camera phones, not a lot of digital cameras, etc.
Two dates were... not awful, but things clearly weren't going to go any further for either side. The other one, we became friends for a while after.
Fwiw, the LRB ended its personal ads in 2010. It still has a small handful each issue but they're quite conventional compared to the pre-2010 ones.
posted by fabius at 5:35 AM on February 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
In my experience, ads were classified as Men Seeking Women, Women Seeking Men, Men Seeking Men, and Women Seeking Women. There might have been one for people seeking friends, but I'm not sure (the "friends with benefits" thing didn't really exist).
Like others mentioned, there was also the Missed Connections section, which I always read and was always disappointed that no one was ever describing me.
In the early 90s I had a roommate who used the printed personals for dating for a while. He placed an ad in the local free alternative weekly paper and also responded to other people's ads. It was via voicemail, so you got a PIN and could call in to see if anyone had left you a message (so much excitement if there were messages, and much disappointment when there were not). Then it would move to phone calls, and from there maybe a date in person. He stopped using it after he got catfished. I guess she had a really sexy phone voice because they spent a solid couple of weeks having intense phone sex every night (tying up our single phone line, of course), and then one night the phone sex was so good he headed over to see her. Unfortunately she was not as she had advertised, much older, very different physically, and it was overall such an unpleasant experience for him that he quit the personals dating entirely and went back to hoping to meet someone in person.
My memory is that there was a much closer balance in numbers between men seeking women and women seeking men, unlike apparently the situation on dating apps now. (But, that also might have been with a bunch of fake ads to pull in men and thereby earning the paper money from the voicemail fees.)
posted by Dip Flash at 6:03 AM on February 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
Like others mentioned, there was also the Missed Connections section, which I always read and was always disappointed that no one was ever describing me.
In the early 90s I had a roommate who used the printed personals for dating for a while. He placed an ad in the local free alternative weekly paper and also responded to other people's ads. It was via voicemail, so you got a PIN and could call in to see if anyone had left you a message (so much excitement if there were messages, and much disappointment when there were not). Then it would move to phone calls, and from there maybe a date in person. He stopped using it after he got catfished. I guess she had a really sexy phone voice because they spent a solid couple of weeks having intense phone sex every night (tying up our single phone line, of course), and then one night the phone sex was so good he headed over to see her. Unfortunately she was not as she had advertised, much older, very different physically, and it was overall such an unpleasant experience for him that he quit the personals dating entirely and went back to hoping to meet someone in person.
My memory is that there was a much closer balance in numbers between men seeking women and women seeking men, unlike apparently the situation on dating apps now. (But, that also might have been with a bunch of fake ads to pull in men and thereby earning the paper money from the voicemail fees.)
posted by Dip Flash at 6:03 AM on February 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
Back in the 1980s, I worked in an office in Soho, then still a slightly rakish area of London. There was a tiny kiosk next to the door of our offices which sold cigarettes, sweets and other such items. What I hadn't realised was that this guy also operated the kiosk as a discrete forwarding service for anyone not wishing to receive questionable letters at their home address.
One of my jobs was to open the the stack of hard copy post our office got each morning. If something was in the pile I'd been given, I automatically assumed it was for us and sliced it open without even glancing at the address.
One envelope on this particular day disgorged a dozen or so explicit photographs of a middle-aged couple shagging, together with a covering letter explaining they'd seen the intended recipients' personal ad in a Readers' Wives style porn mag, and looked forward to receiving their own pics in return. Retrieving the envelope, I realised it should have gone to box whatever-it-was in the kiosk downstairs - which I guess was one of the ways amateur porn operated in those ancient times.
We passed the photos round the office a couple of times, then added a note offering our regards to everyone involved, resealed the envelope and took it down to the kiosk to be forwarded on.
posted by Paul Slade at 3:48 PM on February 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
One of my jobs was to open the the stack of hard copy post our office got each morning. If something was in the pile I'd been given, I automatically assumed it was for us and sliced it open without even glancing at the address.
One envelope on this particular day disgorged a dozen or so explicit photographs of a middle-aged couple shagging, together with a covering letter explaining they'd seen the intended recipients' personal ad in a Readers' Wives style porn mag, and looked forward to receiving their own pics in return. Retrieving the envelope, I realised it should have gone to box whatever-it-was in the kiosk downstairs - which I guess was one of the ways amateur porn operated in those ancient times.
We passed the photos round the office a couple of times, then added a note offering our regards to everyone involved, resealed the envelope and took it down to the kiosk to be forwarded on.
posted by Paul Slade at 3:48 PM on February 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
Off topic to the Askme but I know two couples who met via the Boston Phoenix personal ad section - one of the couples had their ad framed and hung it in their guest bathroom.
And FWIW you can still do this via the New York Review of Books. Here's the link
and here's an example (the ads are in general extremely entertaining to read)
A GLOBALLY SEASONED EARLY 70S SoCal media artist, financially stable with abundant Weltschmerz, seeks to meet an erudite, genial, and independent woman 60–75 who remains curious about the wonders that life still holds. My pronouns are ars gratia artis. Let’s be pen pals starting with a short Bio and see, as photographers would say “what develops.” malibuwidower@gmail.com.
yep, they're all like that.
posted by bluesky43 at 5:23 PM on February 11, 2023
And FWIW you can still do this via the New York Review of Books. Here's the link
and here's an example (the ads are in general extremely entertaining to read)
A GLOBALLY SEASONED EARLY 70S SoCal media artist, financially stable with abundant Weltschmerz, seeks to meet an erudite, genial, and independent woman 60–75 who remains curious about the wonders that life still holds. My pronouns are ars gratia artis. Let’s be pen pals starting with a short Bio and see, as photographers would say “what develops.” malibuwidower@gmail.com.
yep, they're all like that.
posted by bluesky43 at 5:23 PM on February 11, 2023
My now-husband and I met via a personal ad that I placed in the local alternative newspaper. I had read the ads of women in my age range and wrote one that was designed to stand out and give as much info about my personality in a very short written description.
Placing an ad with the newspaper was free, but leaving voicemail to respond to an ad was not. There was also some sort of system where I recorded answers to questions about my age, interests, etc over the phone, and people could somehow browse those responses without reading the ad. It was very clear from the responses I got which men had read the ad (which was pretty specific) and which had only listened to my recordings (which were quite a bit more vague; the whole voice-being-recorded aspect made me uncomfortable and I just tried to get through it as quickly as possible.)
I led a charmed life in this system. I placed one ad, and the third (and fourth, I'll get to that a litle later) voicemail was from my now-husband. Other people (including my husband) had a much longer, more frustrating time trying to make dating-through-personals work.
So I listened to the first two voicemails, who were clearly people responding to my recordings, and felt a lot like, "Hello, I am looking to date a woman in your age range, and you sound unobjectionable, so maybe call me back?"
The third voicemail was from someone who clearly had read my ad and liked it a lot. He talked a bit about shared interests. The flow of the voicemail was a little odd, but he sounded like a very nice man--and then the voicemail ended without him giving me his phone number or email or last name. All I had was a first name, and I didn't know any way to contact him through the ad system.
The fourth voicemail was him again; he explained that he'd done the "record answers to questions on the phone" route, and it had felt weird, so he just wanted to say his piece on his own. Luckily for us both, this time he left his phone number. We talked on the phone for about a week, then met in person and just really, really liked each other right from the start.
In about a week it will have been 26 years since we first met. I've spent more than half my life with him, and can't imagine how different my life would have been if he hadn't left that second voicemail. I'm glad the technology for online dating has advanced these days; I assume that this sort of thing wouldn't happen on modern dating apps.
posted by creepygirl at 12:26 AM on February 14, 2023 [3 favorites]
Placing an ad with the newspaper was free, but leaving voicemail to respond to an ad was not. There was also some sort of system where I recorded answers to questions about my age, interests, etc over the phone, and people could somehow browse those responses without reading the ad. It was very clear from the responses I got which men had read the ad (which was pretty specific) and which had only listened to my recordings (which were quite a bit more vague; the whole voice-being-recorded aspect made me uncomfortable and I just tried to get through it as quickly as possible.)
I led a charmed life in this system. I placed one ad, and the third (and fourth, I'll get to that a litle later) voicemail was from my now-husband. Other people (including my husband) had a much longer, more frustrating time trying to make dating-through-personals work.
So I listened to the first two voicemails, who were clearly people responding to my recordings, and felt a lot like, "Hello, I am looking to date a woman in your age range, and you sound unobjectionable, so maybe call me back?"
The third voicemail was from someone who clearly had read my ad and liked it a lot. He talked a bit about shared interests. The flow of the voicemail was a little odd, but he sounded like a very nice man--and then the voicemail ended without him giving me his phone number or email or last name. All I had was a first name, and I didn't know any way to contact him through the ad system.
The fourth voicemail was him again; he explained that he'd done the "record answers to questions on the phone" route, and it had felt weird, so he just wanted to say his piece on his own. Luckily for us both, this time he left his phone number. We talked on the phone for about a week, then met in person and just really, really liked each other right from the start.
In about a week it will have been 26 years since we first met. I've spent more than half my life with him, and can't imagine how different my life would have been if he hadn't left that second voicemail. I'm glad the technology for online dating has advanced these days; I assume that this sort of thing wouldn't happen on modern dating apps.
posted by creepygirl at 12:26 AM on February 14, 2023 [3 favorites]
I never placed one, but they were usually entertaining to read.
posted by freakazoid at 11:23 AM on February 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by freakazoid at 11:23 AM on February 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
'Private Eye' was famous for these. Check some of their 'Eye Love' ads archived from around 2002 here. As mentioned this worked by allocating box numbers.
posted by plep at 7:19 AM on September 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by plep at 7:19 AM on September 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
If you placed an ad, you got a dedicated voicemail box or a dedicated email address (there was a time when there was Internet but no World Wide Web), and interested parties would either call and leave you a voicemail or send you an email. As the ad-placer, you would then be able to review the emails or voicemails and follow up.
I did such a thing only once; I placed the add, and it was back in 1995 so I do not remember how much it cost. (I think costs varied depending on who owned the ad site; I used one in a free weekly indie newspaper in New York in the 90s.) I followed up on two guys' voice messages; in both cases, we had an initial conversation and made a date for a second phone call just in case, and then when that second call went well we went on to an in-person date. (With the second guy, our first phone call lasted 2 hours and the second one lasted 4 hours, and then our first date lasted 18 hours and on our second date he saved my life, so I stuck with him quite some time afterward, and by the time we'd broken up and I was ready to date again the online dating apps were kicking off so that was the one time I did the paper personals.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:27 AM on February 9, 2023 [30 favorites]