Dating Personals

Crafting Your Dating Personals Ad

A well written personal gets more attention, and really makes a first impression on potential partners. Here are some tips that should help.

• Keep your ad fresh, making changes as you become more experienced in writing dating personals.
• Check out other people’s personal ads and note what attracts you. If something caught your attention, chances are the same thing will attract others to your own personal ad.
• Be positive. Never lie or mislead, but be sure to highlight your best aspects.
• Remember, online dating personals have more room for photos and other information. By necessity, dating personals in printed media must be kept short and sweet.
• Be direct when you write about yourself and what you’re looking for. State your hobbies and interests truthfully, no matter how odd or eccentric they might be.
• Don’t use clichés such as ‘nice’, or ‘looking for Mr./Mrs. Right’.
• Spend enough time on your personal ad to make it look and sound as good as possible.
• Select your photo carefully for online dating personals. You don’t want to use an old, or touched-up photograph, but you will want to use a photo that captures you at your best. It’s awful, but just as books get judged by their covers, many people discount personal ads by photos alone.

Making Your Selections

With so many people to choose from, how can you decide who to make contact with? Use these tips to narrow the field and make a few selections:

• Discount people quickly if they mention something that goes against your personal tastes and values. For example, if you don't enjoy alcohol or other recreational substances, you don’t want to answer an ad for someone who says he/she likes to party. The same holds true for other interests, including hobbies and jobs.
• However, if you’re intrigued by the snapshot of someone’s life, you may want to contact them. Remember that dating can also help you meet interesting people and make new friends.
• Trust your instincts. Ads that sound too good to be true probably are.
• Watch for discrepancies between personal ads and the photos accompanying them. If people aren't being honest in their ads, they probably aren't honest in real life either.

Dating Safety

When you’re going on a date with a person you haven’t met before, it can make for an awkward beginning to the evening, but more than that, it can also be dangerous. Follow these tips to keep yourself a little safer when meeting someone who is essentially a stranger.

• It’s important that you create a new email address for your personal ad responses. Only e-mails answering your personal ad will go to this address.
• When you create a personal ad, leave out personal details like your last name, workplace, home address and telephone number.
• Do not give out your personal details to anyone until you have met the person and trust them.
• Choose a public place for your first date and arrive separately so they don’t know where you live.
• Let your friends know you’re going on a date, where you plan to be, and how you can be reached, just in case the evening doesn't turn out the way you hope it will.

Online Personal Ads

Online ads usually cause less confusion and frustration than you may experience when you're trying to weed through the personal ads in newspapers and other publications. Many online dating sites have pre-set matching criteria, allowing you to quickly establish which users share your activities and interests. These sites also allow more room for photos and information than newspaper/magazine publications, so you get a chance to really express your personality, something that should help you attract a partner with similar qualities. Internet dating web sites also have the capacity to reach a much larger audience than print media. You can stay local if you choose, or you may just wind up meeting someone wonderful from another part of the country. There are some free online dating sites, but many sites charge a fee if you actually want to start contacting some of the people whose profiles catch your eye.

Conclusion

Whether you prefer the newspaper or the internet, your dating personals are your first chance to make a good impression, so put a lot of thought a care into creating an ad that shows you off to your best advantage.