ToGL: How to Write a Personal Ad

Nothing turns me foaming mouth rabid like a personal ad that looks like this:

“Good looking girl seeks good looking guy. Works out 3 days a week. Witty.”

They may have some line about fine dining, cuddling by a fire, or sunset-lit walks by some scummy puddle. Or head games. And that’s it. There’s probably some badly-lit, nose-enhancing photo that was taken of the writer by his own hand.

I have a history with personals that spans 16 years, and I wrote them for a lot of different reasons: social experiments (write about myself different ways, see what I get); dinner (when I was starving in college); anger (because writing personals used to be an art, dammit!)

The last personal ad I wrote was about 10 months ago. I was angry, like I am now. What happened was I went to craig’s list to scan personals for fun, found the bs like above, and wrote my own ad (no photo, because I’m old school) to show them how it should be done. I wrote that I had a kid and he comes first, that if everyone on this site is so great, why aren’t they out getting laid, and described myself completely, from clothing sizes to hair style to what I like doing by myself to what I like doing with my guy, (yes, sexually), and also what I like to do, my interests, etc. And I met the best guy. We're still together. The interesting thing to me was that I took a tough tone in my ad, and I met powerful people: pro-wrestlers, fashion designers, editors. No joke.

How to Write A Personal Ad
Everyone:
1. You are not looking for the largest number of responses. While flattering to the ego, a large number of responses wastes a lot of time and money. All you need is one response: the right one.

2. Be truthful. Tell them how you look. Not what you weigh, because that can be deceiving. And not some broad adjectives, like skinny or fat or bodacious. If people compliment you on anything, say so. How tall you are, your clothing sizes, hair color, eye color. If you want a photo to cover this, make sure that someone else takes it, that you are not at a wedding, and that you are outside, and look a little nicer than usual.

3. If you have anyone special already in your life, be it a child, or wife, or a cat, say so. A lot of people are allergic to children, spouses and/or pets. Bring it up in your ad, and save everyone (including yourself) some time.

4. Write down what you like to do, whether it is watching "Friends" or illegally training a pet dolphin in your pool. Write down ideally how much and what kind of sex you like or not like. You don't have to get too deep into the description, or too graphic or visual. You can say something like, "I like giving and getting oral, but I don't let anyone play with my feet." That's it. Keep those foot fetishists at bay.

5. Describing the other person.

Think back to any qualities that all your boyfriends/girlfriends shared in all of your successful relationships. Like, I realized that all my favorite boyfriends had very large media collections: records, tapes, cds, dvds, videos, books--basically massive libraries in their homes. I made sure to put that in my ad. This may take some time and some lists, but maybe all of your favorites liked "Friends" or something.

An ad written by a straight woman should list her minimum physical requirements for a guy. Not the maximum. You may think that will get you less than what you ask for, but actually, you will get honest guys that are more than what you ask for. I asked for someone taller than me (5'5 or taller) and no fatter than Jack Black in my last ad. My guy is 5'9, and 160lbs. Perfect.

An ad written by a man, ideally, should not list any physical requirements that have to do with a woman's body, other than maybe her height. Women are in a difficult position: society tells them they all have to look like Paris Hilton, but that'll never be so, and you will probably miss out on women without huge egos if you talk about how beautiful they have to be. I think the best way to hedge this whole issue is to be very vague:" slim pref.", or "endowed pref.", "only responses with pix will be answered" (but you better have your own pic up for that one). And if you want someone very athletic, you should probably cover that in your interests section, as in, "After a long day studying frog genitalia in the lab, I want someone to bike ride ten miles with me and recount to me what happened on "Survivor." Something like that will probably get all of the dumb, fat chics who need you home at 6:30 at bay.

6. Write your "headline" last. Write everything else. Don't worry about being too witty. In my experience, the wittier the ad, the dumber the respondents. Just try to be clear. At the end, of all your lists, see if there is any kind of common thread, witty head line you can come up with. If not, just look at the list of activities you like to do, pick out your favorite one, and just say "Seeking someone to ______ with me."

If I were Dear Abby (2)

As I mentioned in ShockMania Comics(shockmania.blogspot.com), I am an advice column addict. It's almost the only reason I get the Staten Island Ad-vance (that and wacky Islanders' building code shenanigans/rat-outs). I like to take on repeat Dear Abby letters.

Dear Abby,
I have been with this guy for a while, but he won't commit. Maybe he's afraid of commitment? What should I do?
Demanding

Dear Demanding,
It depends on what you mean by not committing.
Is he running around with a bunch of chics? Then you should probably dump him for someone who is committed to safe-condom-free sex, at the very least.
Is he basically your boyfriend but your life goal is to get married and have 2.2 kids? Then you'll have to have the "talk," and tell him that if he's not on board with this goal of yours, you'll have to make him walk the plank before you waste any more of eachother's time. And then follow through. Not that you can't be friends, but no one wants to hear that stupid line from the deep blue briny.
Is he a nice boyfriend? Are you having a good time? Are you on the fence about the whole kid thing? Maybe you're the one who is scared. Scared of losing him, of the future, whatever. Remember that getting married offers no guarantees, just a lot of legal complications, and enjoy your boyfriend as long as you have him.

How To Keep Attention Focused on You While Online

There are so many people in chat rooms and online groups these days! They are so smart and interesting, how in the world will you be able to keep attention focussed on yourself?

One great way to keep attention focussed on yourself is to have an aggressively sexy nick (like h*t p*ssy) and then say that you will not do any personal messaging. (Thanks for bringing this up, Sugs!) This nick will drag the attention of many poor horny bastards to you, start flirty little fights, and keep as much attention on you as possible. Plus, you keep your good girl image by rejecting pm's. Unfortunately, smart ones will know that talkers aren't f*ckers, and may avoid you.

Another good way to keep the attention on yourself is to say something contrary in the group. Be sure to be huffy and self-righteous, and never admit you are wrong. This will flare anger in the group, and maybe some divisiveness too. Unlike the first one, this may get the attention of some smart people in the group/room, and they might type to you like mad. After everyone is tired of typing about this, go around saying you are sorry, but still not admitting you are wrong, and start "explaining".

Get very, very emotional about an offhand comment. Make sure no one could possibly understand how you feel. Make sure everyone feels bad, and says that they're sorry. And don't let that be good enough for you, until everyone is sick of talking about it. Then tell everyone that it's okay, and send out another round of posts telling them it's ok, to get everyone to pay attention to you once more.

I am sure there are many other ways to keep everyone's attention on you in your chatroom/online group. If you have any other favorites (or classics), send them as comments or if they are too long, by email, (sukihoshi24@yahoo.com). I will post them and give you credit.

Ekas Annoying Christianoi (Nice Christianoi can hang out)

For the past few days there has been quite a hubbub at my Neo-Hellenic online group, because a worship group in Greece uses the words "Ekas Christianoi" (Depart Christians!) at the beginning of its ceremonies. Now, Greece may be a democracy, but it is also a theocracy: if you don't show up at the Greek Orthodox Church, a priest may come to your house and try to exorcise the devil. Well, anyways, some of the non-Hellenic members got freaked out about this negative energy, ma-an, and the whole thing descended into bickering, excruciatingly long posts, people responding to posts they didn't fully read (guilty as charged), and a round of whiney toughness talk ("I have TOO faced oppression, dammit!") which I will discuss in another post.

None of this solved the original problem: How do we make Annoying Christians go away? Now, I'm not talking about nice Christians, who keep to themselves, and just happily worship their god. One of my best friends is very active in her church, and I deeply respect her because she really knows her Bible, and is thoughtful about it. I am talking about ANNOYING, OPPRESSIVE PROSELYTIZERS, TELLING ME WHO, HOW AND WHERE TO WORSHIP, AND WHAT SHOULD BE DONE TO MY SOUL.

Three Ways to Make Annoying Christians Go Away
1. The next time someone starts talking to you (especially in a big crowd) about Jesus, do what my friend Hell Kitten does: Interrupt, and as if you never spoke the word "Jesus" before you your life, say, "Sooo, what can you tell me about this...jeeeeezzzz-us?" The person will start talking directly to you, as if you were a live one, and you say, "Wow that is so much to learn about jeeeeeeeeezzzzz-us. Is there any way I can read about him?" When he hands you a pamphlet, look at it carefully, turn it in your hands and say, "This is so small. Is there any other way I can learn more?" Then he will start talking to you more, but by now you won't be able to hear him over the roar of the laughter of the crowd around you, and you can just leave.

2. Hierophant's Proselytizer's Questionnaire. It's about 20 pages long, and designed to waste this proselytizer's time in an attempt to convert you. Make a lot of copies. Keep one with you at all times. It's more from the atheist camp, but still useful. Here's the link:

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/5599/hpq/hpq-print.html

3. Hit them in the pocket book. Find a way to sue! Do a slip and fall in front of a church. Those poor victims of pedophilic priests are really taking the Catholic Church apart stone by stone with this maneuver. Think of a reason to sue, and follow through.

This story brought to you by Glaucos, who I met through a neo-hellenic group.

Well, where can i start to explain. Many years ago, when i was about 17 or 18, I converted to Islam and underwent what I now call a "muslim re-education". After some months of learning the traditions and ways of the Islamic community, I was refered during the Bosnia crisis to an aid organisation running aid to the poor bosnian muslims, where I discovered a whole new perspective on life. I didn't get to Bosnia because a few things happened to me that made me reconsider a few things about humanity, christianity and islam. (And the poor ordinary folk caught up as passive members of their captive audience who were slowly dragged in exodus from slaughter zone to slaughter zone....) So what do you think made me come away from it all? Because I saw through some boxes and learnt what "friends" wanted to do with the "aid"? As we are online, there's no way I can post about what I found, and what plans were being made for "Jihad" and why they were making them. The core of their reason was "They kill us whenever they find us. We should not send food and clothes, we should send ammo. We want our women to shoot the enemy when they are resisting rape and murder, not be well fed and wearing nice clothes waiting for them!" And on the other foot, a boot equally as hard and steely. There is no mercy and no hesitation in the slaughter. I'm not condoning anything. I will exhort all fellows at all times to be ready for these people. The muslims got their asses kicked in Bosnia because they trusted their chrisitian neighbours.

So in view of what I experienced, coming into contact with a terrorist cell and listening to their reasoning, their scope and planning for future destructions within the UK, I left these people to their own nutty designs. On the one hand there were christians commiting mass slaughter (again) for whatever reason and muslims trying to slaughter as recompense for the pleasure of Allah. Both were as bad as the other, as willy nilly machine gun fire at random targets was not what I'd enlisted to do, it was to defend a pacifist driver from assault on a misson to take clothes and food aid. What this taught me, especially as I was (it was told me) going to be used to undermine and cause havoc amongst my own people in my own nation, is that there was no actual cause, it was professional terror and the guys were just troublemakers who'd found a temporary cause to get some glory and some young gullible members.

And there are so many of these lunatics!

So please don't call me the darkest and most hateful, or crazy. I just want you to realise that in your own city, even your own district, there are fundamentalists who want to nail you up and burn you alive, that is, after torturing you and screwing you to unconsciousness. Sorry if I've offended anyone with some dark truths. Though I'm sure that its more than just excrement. And I got to say it after what I view another "internet assualt" by someone who writes faster that they think, whenever I hear what others call a "fluffy bunny" warbling about peace and forgiveness, I kind of hear it differently ever since I read Tolkeins LOTR and examined Grimer Wormtounges assistance to the King. Essentially, Grimer would have had the king "on all fours like a beast", and that "the king is tired by the constant talk of warmongering". Could we just compare it with the words by Aragon, "War is upon you, wether you like it or not". That really does "take the worm".

"Fluffy Bunnisms" is a misnomer. Really. Its Grimerism in its most deceitful, reality suspending form. I'd appreciate it if you'd blog this message so that your readers can understand fully my sentiment.

How I Made Myself Wince

Ok, we have all heard about the inflatable doll for men. I have seen them. They are ugly--and if you can bear to imagine--sticky and uncomfortable like vinyl car seat to a sweaty person.

Imagine this: if you can bear it--a spongy doll on a plastic armiture so you can bend the arms and stuff. It would not be as compact as the blowup one, but sponge is squishy and could perhaps be folded into an innocent looking suitcase. The advantage of wetting for slight expansion and sensation, and also the advantage of a more life-like squishy feel of a human body without the hard seams, and pinchy vinyl.

Imagination...too...powerful... can't...stop...yuk!

This is why fantasy is no fun for me--I immediately imagine all the technical details, ramifications, how everything feels--and yuk!

For Men Only!!! First Dates. (ToGL 5)

First date! Aaaaah! Scary! I must impress her! I must blow all my money on tickets to that Robyn Hitchcock revival show and dress to the nines and make sure I have a condom...

Wrong answer. I have hung out with so many guys the day after this disaster. They don't cry, but they have such an ideal night on their minds, there's no way it could turn out well.

1. Plan small. Plan for 2 to 3 hours of fun. Do not blow all your money. Movie then a light dinner. A short walk in the country, and a bottle of wine, fancy crackers. A few games of squash, followed by drinks.

2. Take only ten minutes more getting ready. Your clothes only need to be clean and fit well. If you shave, shave. Clip your fingernails (you never know). Yes, bring 2 or 3 rubbers (you Boy Scout, you!)

3. Have fun! Make sure you are both having fun, and take care of your date. If it's good, hang out more. If it goes bad, it goes bad--not every two tastes taste great together. (You were peanut butter, but you didn't know she was pizza.) Finish the date politely as possible.