Love
If you want to learn about love in your home town you have to read the personal ads.
Cupid turns failed passion and disappointed expectation into an innocent source of merriment. He makes people who have been looking for love in all the wrong places look for it in another wrong place: The classified section of their daily newspaper, where he turns them into comic Valentines we can all enjoy.
What follows is from one day's ads here in Baja Arizona.
If you believe them, nearly everyone is into physical fitness. They are all looking for soulmates who like biking, hiking, "long walks in the park," skiing, scuba diving, swimming, and horseback riding. But the same people will also specify "quiet times," or "quiet evenings at home."
Well, little wonder.
After some lunatic has run her up and down a mountain with a twenty pound pack on her back Jill can hardly get out of her chair, and Jack is at least two days away from having the energy to "explore their relationship."
A "relationship," incidentally, is something that more men seem to ask for than do women. Clearly this is a code word, acceptable to the newspaper, for something rather more earthy...like a tumble in the sack.
Women, even when they are interested in the same thing, are a good deal more imaginative. Who could resist the "lonely lioness" who is looking for someone to "roam the jungle with?"
Many women who say that they yearn for quiet evenings at home also want to go out dancing. "Blue-eyed blond," "lean and attractive," and "loves dancing" are all three looking for two-steppin' fools... if the men are "sincere."
And judging from the ads they shouldn't have a lot of trouble. In a recent classified section I counted a round dozen guys who proclaimed themselves devoted dancers. Ladies, don't trust these rogues.They are not sincere. They are liars. They know that dancing, or the claim that they dance, is better than cheap after-shave to lure the unsuspecting into a "relationship."
Where dancing is concerned there are only two kinds of men. The first kind can't dance and think that men who can are either gigolos, or people of unsound business principles. The second kind actually can dance. But if they can, they don't have to advertise for companionship in the classified ads. Their social calendars overflow.
The three most asked for character traits in a "possible relationship" are sincerity, honesty, and a sense of humor. Hey, when you read the becoming modesty with which these folks describe themselves you can understand the part about a sense of humor.
The "tall, slim" lady will probably get together with the "physically fit" fellow. "Morning person" is "tall, slender, and athletic." The rest of this lonely crowd are youthful, educated, unique, and in one case "peppy." One is a "former model" and another is an "entertainer and dancer."
Great, we'll clean out the barn and put on a show.
None of the ads specify bowling as a sport of choice, but a bunch of them...well, four or five...like to shoot pool. Back in the old neighborhood the smart money used to bet that being good at eightball or rotation was the sign of a misspent youth. Clearly this is the perfect basis for a fun evening. Shoot a little pool, shoot a few beers on the couch, and take in a flicker on the teevee.
Incidentally, more people like "movies" than like "good conversation." Which is splendid, because movies and conversation don't go well together and this somewhat reduces the chance that your date will talk all through the show. Or nudge you and say things like, "Wow, how about that!"
Perhaps the ad writer was simply given to grammatical ambiguity, but the ad that proclaims an interest in "doing everything under the sun" ominously suggests the sunburned termination of previous "relationships."
And for myself, I'd take a pass on the ad that begins "Extreme Idealist".... and ends with "looking for endless relationship."
It would probably seem that way.
