written by a gay friend about me

This week, i was chatting with a friend. He said some particularly complimentary things about me, so much so that i wrote to him the next day and jokingly suggested he should write a personal romance ad for me. I was not the least bit surprised when he actually did so. In the spirit of fun, i posted the ad on the craigslist M4W section, along with the picture above, and one bracketed section of my own words. The entire ad is below, in braces. I used my friend's own parenthetical as the title. It's also the title of this post, with only the last word changed. I didn't edit a single other word, which was a challenge, because i'm a writer and my sense of self is extremely pronounced. But in the interest of not being a control freak, i left his words untouched.

Wrob is a playwright and actor in his early 40s. While his emphatic lack of religious beliefs rules out sainthood, he is a fundamentally decent fellow who, despite a sometimes dry sense of humor, does not have a cruel bone in his body. Other bones, and muscles, are present, however -- he's wiry and has no body fat to speak of, so if you're looking for a beefy football type, he's not the best candidate. Wrestling, on the other hand, is a real strength, and you should ask him about it after a few drinks. His glass will contain tea, not liquor, not because he's in AA but because he's something of a purist about keeping his head clear. This makes him an enjoyable and lucid conversationalist who always has an interesting take on human nature and our place in the cosmos. (Just don't get him started on the Muppet movies.) It also means that when he misbehaves, he does so in complete control of his faculties. When it comes to sex, he has a refusal to follow external rules but an insistence on living up to a good moral code. Inevitably because of wrob's time in theater as a writer, actor, and director, a fair number of women around him show interest, and the occasional gay man, too, wondering if he might swing the other way. But in the world of wrob, a woman's body is her temple -- and his. (Maybe he's religious after all.) If I tell you that he loves Star Trek and has a photo of himself standing next to William Shatner, you might assume that he's a sexless wonk. Seeing a head shot of him should help dispel this concern. You'll also see his good skin and the fact that he still has a terrific head of hair, for which we hate him. If there's any incongruity in his appearance, it's that his strong jaw and large eyes suggest a certain manic quality (this explains why MTV cast him as the chainsaw wielding psycho for their recent Halloween promos), but he is really not a bad boy. Well... maybe if you really, really want him to be? Couldn't hurt to hit him back and find out.

I also posted the ad because it was nice to be emotionally able to do so, after not being able to even browse CL for six months after my last breakup. I always try to approach online romance without expectation...but this time, i have to say that i light-heartedly expected i might get a whole lot of responses.

Are you ready for the numbers?

In the four days since i posted, i've received approximately twenty responses. The first one was from an intelligent, literate woman in Nova Scotia, who wanted to say that my ad was the best she'd ever seen. The second response said "Dear prospective massage client". And the rest? Every single one has proven to be spam, some variation on "I loved your ad so much that i have to meet you, and would you please click onto another site, where you can find my pictures and we can then get to the sex we'll be enjoying soon?" The pictures accompanying these replies ranged from fairly wholesome to "wide-open beaver".

So basically, my ad brought in not one single response from a living, breathing NYC woman. Not one. Am i surprised? Well...yes. Almost dumbfounded, actually. How does that ad go unresponded to? My sharpest critique of it was that it made me seem more normal than i am...but i expected that factor to only increase my responses.

In my experience with online ads, i'd long ago learned that M4W is not a particularly fruitful way to approach things. I'd posted one of my poems from time to time, and never got more than a handful of real responses. But if i hadn't gotten that one appreciation note from the Canadian wilds (okay, she lives in a city of 350,000), i might be almost questioning my sanity now.

Anyone have any theories on why New York women did their best cricket impersonations? I suppose my only hypothesis is that CL has degraded even more in the time i've been away. But really, i'm just scratchin' my head.

So to my friend who wrote the ad, and to my new penpal in the frozen north, i love you both. Have a merry Maxmas and a romantic new year!

P.S. Friends and relatives have since offered opinions on why the ad was met with silence. The only one i've found interesting is my mother's idea that the ad is so impressive women might be intimidated. More morning breath and flatulence, next time?