Tuesday, September 12, 2006

And for some entertainment...

Here's my subsequent Craigslist post:

Upon posting my first w4m CL personal ad, I've received upwards of 500 emails (and still counting). Only 10% of these emails I read more than once and kept in my inbox for further perusal. Here are some tips for the kind of people who were part of the 90% whose messages I immediately sent to my trash bin.

For those of you with short attention spans, here's the most important one :

Read the ad, and respond accordingly.


This means:
  1. If I use paragraphs, please use paragraphs.
  2. If I capitalize words and spell "you" out, please do the same.
  3. If I d0n't type like this, d0n't think it's t0tally c00l f0r y0u to type like this.
  4. ..oR tHiS, fOr tHaT mAtTer.
  5. I'm not an idiot, I can tell if you're copying and pasting a response. (Mentioning that you like hitting up bars and clubs when I mentioned very specifically that I don't, is a clue.) Since you're probably answering ~20 ads anyway, I don't feel too bad about deleting your message.
  6. Same thing about MySpace profile plugs. If you don't want to bother telling me about yourself, obviously I'm not worth your time.
  7. If I do not list ideal male physical attributes, don't send me a photo of yourself shirtless.
  8. If I do not mention sex, don't send me a picture of your peen.


And other random notes for consideration:
  1. Just because I describe myself as ethnicity A, doesn't mean that my parents were born in country A, or that I particularly identify with being from country A. Therefore, writing things like "women from country B are too materialistic for me" doesn't come across so well when my mother was born in country B. Mentioning that you have/haven't dated girls of ethnicity A isn't winning points with me either. It gives off the impression that I am just "girl from country A" to you.
  2. I have no idea why guys think it's creative to describe themselves as cars, but it's not. Maybe you're trying to emulate e.e. cummings, but you're failing. And failing miserably, believe me.
  3. Looking at pictures of guys trying to be macho and serious is getting rather morose. What's the deal with guys and smiles?


And now here are a few tips for those of you posting ads:
  1. Take an honest look at yourself. Lamenting the lack of depth and personality while looking for a guy who is 6'2", well-dressed, has beautiful hands, and six-pack abs doesn't quite speak very favorably about you.
  2. Trying to market yourself to the entirety of the male masses probably doesn't work in your favor either. It's almost hilarious, going through other ads and seeing how homogenous they all are, complete with cleavage/ass/leg photos. The nice and decent guys (presumably, the ones you're looking for) probably aren't going to answer your ad. I don't really see what the need for that kind of marketing is either - I made a conscious effort to narrow down my audience to a small niche (no cleavage, no ass, no leg, no mention of sex, no drinking, no going out on the town), but I still received 500+ emails.

Sure, 90% of them were crap, but the 10% that were nice and sincere makes it all worth it. And that's still 50 emails...

posted by sugarfiend @ 7:12 AM

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