I am a veteran of the print personal ads. I used them in a local slternative (no it was not a sex paper) since 1983. I had many long term relationships and even got married via the print ads. Then the internet date sites killed the print ads.

Why do they work and on line dating does not?

There are a number of reasons. The time we live in.
The fact that everyone that has an internet site has a personal's section and charges what the majors do. People are confused and most site have little selection.

Another reason perhaps is MY age. I am 51 and women in this age group are plan hard to get along with. They have no need of a man. All they want is a F buddy in reality and play the field no matter what they say. They want to get even for guys dointing it for years.

There are other reasons but the MAIN one is this.

The Personals has always been considered a last resort for meeting people. As a result, it attracted a certain type of person. And for a better word, we were drwan to each other out of our lack of socilal graces.

We were not bar people whee only the berst get a chance to go home with someone. But with the print personals, more people had a chance to find someone .

Then along came on line dating and the media prasied it. So the type of people that used to go to bars or had no problem picking up people in the real world suddenly have joined the online dating world which is an update of the old print personals.

And these 'mainstream' people are not the same 'social odd balls' that made up the print personal society for want of better words.

So the mainstream people and internet sites took over what had been a great haven for the people who had trouble getting dates.

I wished the internet had never been created. I have no doubt i would have been in relationships instead of wasting my time and hope on rude women who have no idea how to act in the world of the Personals. They think it is the same as meeting in the real world..
JMO

Like I said before, online dating is going the same way as CB radio. It's just a fad, and the game players are going to be the only ones keeping it alive because the rest of us don't take it seriously anymore.

I've used Match.com and eHarmony and been disappointed. Do you have any advice on how to write an effective ad for a print publication? Or is it better to answer someone else's ad? Is more or less detail better? How many ads did you run before you met someone you clicked with?

One site has a nice little guide on how to write a good ad. I wrote an ad on each of the sites they've got there about 2 weeks ago, and since then I've met 2 girls I've had dinner with - and as I can gather, its a fair bit harder for a guy to get a date from one of these sites than it is for a girl (judging by the male to female ratio on them), so I'm sure you shouldn't have too many problems Helen!

After going pretty well using the advice, I actually decided to add to it - the 4th paragraph on the meeting page is almost word for word what I sent them by email. I'm famous! Really though I think they're just starting up and they're taking any advice they can get and share with everyone. The main owner of the site sent me a nice personal email thanking me and all I'm thinking about sending them reviews of some of the sites they sent me to as well, but it took me ages to write the one paragraph so I don't know if I can be bothered.

Anyway, in regards to your question about how many ads before I found someone I clicked with, I made a profile on about 8 sites in total, and I'm subscribed to one of them. Subscribing seems to help - I got results alot faster on the one I subscribed to than on the free one.

I find it can be hard to judge someone by how they seem online though. I mentioned I've been on 2 dates in the last 2 weeks with people I met online. The first one I had really high hopes for because she seemed really interesting and the kind of girl I get along well with, but when I actually met her face to face she was really boring! (hope she doesn't read this! fake name anyway so i should be safe ). The second date I had I was a bit disheartened from the first one, and I wasn't expecting to click too well like I was the first time. I didn't even make a big effort to dress nice or anything, and then when I met her she was really lovely! I hope I didn't make a bad impression cause I think I looked like a bit of a slob in a t-shirt. Since then though I'm playing it cool. Sent her a text a couple of days later saying we should hang out tonight, but she said she was working. Do girls say that kind of thing just to put guys down lightly or what? I really think I could like this girl and I hope she really is working!

orginal poster here

If the person is asking me how many times f did I have to run an ad in print form to get a date-ONE time.

I sometimes ran two or three ads that said different things. I know that is is a numbers game even them.

And the good thing is that you could run different ads and not be stuck because you have to post a photo.

you can be whoever you want or you can bee looking for a F buddy in one ad and a nice girl for a relatiohsip in another. All it costs is money of rthe ad.

And i put hundreds of ads in over 20 years.

And all but a handful got at least one respondse. The most suexual oriented ones even got responses.

The way the print ads worked was that it was consifned to my area where Ilived so no one looked at it in anothe stateecond thing was that the policy was three weks for each ad. After two weeks, the ad usually lost its effectiveness and that was a reason for writing a new type of ad. I see some ads on line that are the same a year alter. No effort went into it and the woman has forgotten it.

I wished on line dating had never been invented (damend Canadians for inventing it and lava life was the first-bastards you ruined my soical life).

But the print ads are popular in Euope even today. And maybe other countries.

Match and a few others are tying to make in roads into on line dating but they do not seem to have a lot of success.

Plenty of fish which is free is the largest date site in Great Britian.

But everyone and their dog has a date site. Order a sleeping bag fromn an on line store and it has a date site on the side. WHY? They take little efort and make a lot of money since there is practiacly no overhead.

Date sites are nearly pure profit (check out plenty on fish by googleing it).

By the time on line dating dies out, i will be too old to care about dating since i am the age that dating is becomeing old and expensive.

I agree, that print ads worked better. A friend of mine who met her husband through print ads (10 yrs ago) can't understand why I have so qalimuch trouble through online ads.

I explain to her that unlike the print ads (which I had just begun the personals dating thing when print went online), you can't just have 30 words describing yourself and a code to answer back -- you have to have pics (usually several) and post a whole profile about yourself, which can take hours -- -and then, you may get nothing.

I do not know what the answer is. I'd actually prefer the print ads, again. I could read a short ad, get an idea, meet in person without these online services which, I am reading about online, are increasingly seeming like scam deals.


>>>Another reason pershaps is MY age. I am 51 and women in this age group are plan hard to get along with. They have no need of a man. All they want is a F buddy in reality and play the field no matter what they say. They want to get even for guys dointing it for years.<<<

eh, well, I am 47, I don't really feel this way, but, in certain ways the dating thing is tipped towards men -- they make the first move, but this is the case in person too.

---for example I have found that if you don't have top notch pics online, no guy will contact you, cause "men are visual" (any person advising you about dating will say this eventually, shaking their head wisely) and as a female you must accommodate that "men are visual' -- whereas oftentimes the guys who contact me, have blurred cellphone pics in their profiles, with their faces even distorted lol ---- yet men go 'shopping' online and if they don't see attractive pics they don't bite -- perhaps all of us are a bit damaged and weary, after being out there for awhile.

Supporting again, that the print ads worked the best. You met for coffee, NO pic in advance, just a meeting on the phone. 30-45 mins, met IN person, if you didn't click no loss, or you could meet again for a walk, etc. and see if there was anything there. We should all be forced to go back to print, local dating perhaps. There is also too much illusion of choice online ---- when in reality, most these profiles, you will not click, or the person is not upfront about themselves online, etc.