by David Rose
There’s something about austere cleanliness that makes my sex engine purr like a kitten. Man, 37, could possibly attract a woman if only I could think of better openers. Box no. 2213.
“Blast into a future of love”
Capricorn Fifteens. Born 2244. Enter the Carousel. This is the time of renewal. Re-enacting Logan’s Run in the corridors of UCL—history lecturer WLTM woman to 45 for whom the phrase ‘be strong and you will be renewed’ is often a prelude to intercourse.109 Box no. 6936.
The genre-crossing personal ad. It begins as Romance with this mention of Jane Austen, before turning into Contemporary Fiction with this reference to the latest Thomas Pynchon novel. But once we meet it’s all Sci-Fi as I persuade you (and I will—my argument is perfectly sound and very coherently structured) about the existence of extra-terrestrials who walk amongst us disguised as doctors, academics, lawyers, my ex-wife and, latterly, following an absurd 3-month ‘cooling-off’ restraining order, my probation officer. Man, 48. Warwick. Box no. 3222. The truth is out there.
Puny Earthlings! I am come to bring a reign of terror upon your intellectually inferior world for a period not less than a thousand years of dark, impenetrable night! Women-folk—I’m going to have to ask you to remove your shirts and send photos to would-be Mekon, 43, sleeping on his sister’s sofa the last three months running.110 Box no. 9733.
This advert is my best attempt at adequately expressing the true nature of the 46-year old man who placed it. It may look unremarkable but, given the scant dimensions humans are aware of, it’s nothing short of miraculous. Reply now and I will show you how it reads among the peaceful Drivulian dream swimmers that populate our minds at night. Box no. 4740.
Man ahead of his time (aged 328 of your earth years). Join me in my Chiswick time machine and together we can blast into a future of love, lust and microwaveable trousers. Box no. 1007.
World of the Strange! LRB reader (F, then 36) places personal advert in 2001 for man to 40 who loves literature, the arts and cycling in Italy. She receives no responses whatsoever but duly notes over the course of the next five years the number of male advertisers to 40 appearing in the same publication who enjoy literature, the arts and cycling in Italy (there were 13 of them). Is the reason they didn’t reply to her advert because they were blind to her outrageous beauty or because she lived in a house in which an old soldier had died upon returning from the Great War in 1918 and had subsequently cursed all future inhabitants, preventing them from ever being happy (this same curse also prevents inhabitants of the house from being able to make omelettes or perform basic house chores such as washing dishes and opening utility bills)? F, now 41, believes it to be the latter and WLTM M to 45 with some knowledge of exorcism rituals, direct debits and the best place for bulk paper plate purchases. Box no. 4784.
You like walking barefoot on cold beaches in the winter, movies that make you cry and baking cookies that you have no intention of eating. I like defending my home against the government forces that are trying to destroy me and knitting carpet samples from fibre remnants found in the back of the dryers at my local launderette. Are we fools to think it could ever work? Moron and amateur carpet sample enthusiast (M, 35). Box no. 5331.
When the authorities eventually remove this covert recording device from my brain, they’ll be able to download not only the most profound musings on the universe ever conceived by man but also possibly the whereabouts of my car keys. Until then paranoid amateur tailor (M, 37, Warwickshire) remains unable to take these cross-stitch manuals back to the library. The chirps and whistles aren’t getting any quieter, and the fines aren’t getting any smaller, but this dog-fur suit is sewing up a storm at box no. 4476. That’s not revulsion you’re feeling right now—it’s passion (or possibly it is revulsion).
Consult the spirits to measure our compatibility:
This personal advert contains more than one hypnotic suggestion. Box no. 7637.
Superheroes of BMX—join me (fortean beast-hunter, M, 34) in my quest for the Cannock Crocodile and help me make Staffordshire as safe a place for geese as ever there was. Or else just hold me and stroke my hair.111 Box no. 4324.
Two heads are better than one! Amateur geneticist and dancing fool (M, 48 and two months) seeks woman to 46 willing to sign an affidavit promising not to reveal the secrets of patent-pending Mind Splicing Machine™ to the scientific community at large. Own apron, gloves and machine that makes whizzy noises a distinct advantage. Box no. 6790.
When the Antmen unite, all will be their slaves. Man, 46, WLTM woman to 50 for whom this opening line works as a proem to sex. Box no. 6222.
By reading this advert you have unwittingly become the latest in my mind experiments in which I persuade the subject to believe I’m a 6’1”, sandy blonde Abercrombie & Fitch model112 with the world at my feet and a lifetime of excitement ahead of me. Man, 57. 6’1”, sandy blonde Abercrombie & Fitch model with the world at my feet and a lifetime of excitement ahead of me. Worthing. Box no. 9117.
The only name listed under my old school on Friends Reunited is mine. That’s because I was taught at home in an isolated farmhouse, far from the shrieking hordes of bird-men that mummy said circled the town, and where I learned how to write by tracing the letters of Dean Friedman113 lyrics. You’d be welcome in my home anytime (M, 41) but don’t tell mummy that you want to leave. Box no. 6338.
My favourite Thundercat was Cheetara, and that’s the way I see you: hand-activated bo-staff, accurate—though limited—application of a psychic sixth sense and fastest of the clowder.114 Idiot man, 34. Box no. 9844.
Forward this personal ad to ten friends. Otherwise bad luck will befall you. Poison pen lady (32, Staffs). Box no. 4675.
Are you planning on crossing the road after reading this? Beware—spy cameras on distant satellites watch your every move, looking for changing heat patterns on the tarmac. Join my campaign to bring back telephoto-resistant cobbles at box no. 0416. (Man, 38.)
I intend to keep the precise contents of this personal ad secret. Box no. 5722.
As it happens, 11.34am two weeks next Friday is the first day of the rest of my life. Nuclear physicist (M, 40) on the brink of time-travelling break-through. Write now to box no. 9859 but be aware that by the time I reply you will be 98 whereas I will have aged just twelve hours. You may have a good-looking grand-daughter by then though. Give her my number and tell her to look me up.
Watch out! Not all sausage rolls are free of eavesdropping microchips. Be safe by rubbing all shop-bought pastries with a strong magnet. Then write to Oxford hick (F), thirties, at box no. 0560.
I used to watch a lot of TV. Now I just sit in my chair and watch the lights come through the keyhole and make crazy, crazy patterns on the wall. M UFO abductee WLT re-establish contact with the others (esp. ‘Jenny’). Box no. 2385.
“Forty years ago I was going to marry Elvis”
Catterick Ladies’ Circle. I don’t want to meet on Tuesday mornings anymore. I don’t want to take the dictation for Kate’s obituary notice in the paper. I don’t want to start the Christmas lights petition. I really don’t like golf—I don’t understand it and all that waiting around hurts my knees. I don’t want my photograph taken with you all for the local paper, celebrating our ‘fun walk’ for the blind. I don’t want a video intercom installed to ‘make me feel more secure’—it’s not really like the Bronx here just yet. I know all about the benefits of a high fibre diet—please don’t make me listen to the man from the well-woman clinic giving a talk about it. I’m glad that the grandchildren never visit; they smell and have terrible manners. I know you all mean well—but I want to behave inappropriately with a man half my age and be the rumour that opens the meeting I’ll be absent from next Tuesday morning. Box no. 6901.
When love eludes you, try provincial living! Gorgeous, ersatz fem (34) living the self-sufficiency dream seeks strong-armed, bold man to 40 to make only positive comments about her needlepoint work and help churn the butter daily. Must have working k
nowledge of calf-birthing procedures. Box no. 9761.
If a break-up to you means spending most lunchtimes
crying over chicken skewers at All Bar One115 then join me, big-boned F (37), and we can share a World Tapas bundle dish and save ourselves a fortune. Afterwards we can make love, but not before the chocolate fondant dessert. I can be found at the Henrietta Street branch, Wednesdays between 12 and 2, requesting fries with my hoi sin duck quesadilla. Box no. 4290.
One day I’ll edit this magazine. Then maybe I’ll be able to get my direct debit cancelled. Until then I’ll take whatever I can get (F, 34). Box no. 1299.
Forty years ago I was going to marry Elvis—at 56 my expectations are lower. The least you could do is try to meet them. If you’re over 4’10”, it’s a start. Box no. 1210.
No beards. F, 38. Box no. 6956.
Does anyone read these ads? Apart from my mother, I mean? If so, write to beautiful, vivacious, intelligent Jewish F (34) who won’t spend every dinner comparing you to her ex-boyfriend. I make no such guarantees about my mother though (hi, mum). Box no. 2511.
Newly divorced man, 46, looking for a woman to 50 who doesn’t conclude sexual intercourse with Queen Katherine’s rebuke to Cardinal Wolsey.116 Box no. 6531.
Hazlewood seeks Sinatra; Presley seeks Ann-Margret; Kristofferson seeks Coolidge; Chiswick Jackie Chan seeks any sort of unmusical, vague, ambiguous, shoehorned love interest of no particular narrative consequence. Help me make it through the chorus only at box no. 1717.117
I wish they all could be Californian,118 but basically anyone within the M25 will do. Man, 43. No criteria beyond the limits of the London Underground network. Oh, and a D-cup. Box no. 1009.
My last husband was a loser. If you’re not a loser please reply. Woman, 40. Incredibly simple criteria. Box no. 4356.
I’ve written every advert that’s ever appeared in this column, but I’ve written them with tears. And pain. And sometimes Tizer. And Quavers.119 And, last week, baked beans crushed onto the end of a comb. Woman, 32, WLTM man with collection of working pens. Functional penis also a distinct advantage. Box no. 6886.
This is positively your last chance to find love. Unless they place this ad somewhere in the middle of the column. Box no. 0526.
When replying to this ad, please specify which type of beverage I should excessively consume before we meet. Woman, 46. Far too used to the standard of LRB-reading men this column throws up yet now prone to migraines caused by red wine where red wine used to make self-hating first date sex so much more bearable. Baileys-types are a definite no-no (I get a yeast reaction to dairy).120 Box no. 6792.
My ideal man is King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden.121 But as long as you don’t leave the door open during toilet moments and adopt the so-called ‘eco-friendly’ maxim ‘if it’s yellow, let it mellow’ then you’ll do. Historian F, 37. Has long since learned not to expect much from this column, but would like a guy who flushes. Box no. 2231.
There comes a point in most intellectual women’s lives when they realise that, as attractive and intelligent as they may be, the LRB is not the place to find an energetic, cultured, good-looking man. Hell, it’s not even the place to find a guy who doesn’t begin his conversations with ‘the biopsy revealed nothing—but I swear there’s something not right down there’. This advert, therefore, is less a last ditch attempt to be proven wrong, and more a ‘so long, suckers’ to all the other women still reading this column when they could dumb down to the Guardian Soulmates and taste long-forgotten fruit. Come on in, girls, the water’s lovely—even if the water’s full of spelling mistakes, author interviews that no-one gives a crap about, and stuff lifted from the previous night’s Evening Standard.122 Box no. 8810.
LRB on-line RPG123 nerds: you are the most wretched group of bores to exist on God’s good earth. Never reply to me. Never, never, never. Previously affable, now largely intolerant and recently divorced woman (34) WLTM a bloke my age who doesn’t spend 15 hours a day pretending he’s a heroic blacksmith killing stuff in some other-dimensional village resembling Cottingley, West Yorkshire, circa 1902. Talk to me, not Olaf the Destroyer, at box no. 3633.
Newly divorced man, 38, WLTM woman to 40 whose heroes don’t include Leslie Cole, Bill ‘Dink’ Hewit, Roger Martinez, Peter Jaconelli, Dave Man or William Corfield.124 Northumbria. Box no. 6362.
My last date resulting from an ad in this column didn’t turn up because he’d been rushed to hospital having mixed two industrial cleaners whilst mopping his kitchen floor. Thanks for nothing, LRB and Cillit Bang.125 Women with tales of dating woe more agonising than this please write to box no. 8753. I’ve given up on sex and now just need words of reassurance.
You’d have thought that this magazine would be fertile ground for the acquisition of cocktail party banter and intellectual snippets to chew over while sipping martinis. But I’ve been to LRB bookshop subscriber nights and can promise you it’s not. Woman, 37, consuming all the free chardonnay by the poetry section in the basement. Bring your discount card, and an opening line that doesn’t involve Ross McKibbin’s latest piece, and I’ll almost certainly sleep with you.126 Box no. 7699.
Getting laid through Match.com127 isn’t as easy as the adverts make it out to be. I’m hoping for better pickings from this column. Woman, 87. Box no. 5444.
Obwohl sie eine erfolgreiche Investment-Bankerin war, war sie unzufrieden mit ihrem Leben. Irgendetwas fehlte. Sie versuchte all diese Stimmungen, Gedanken und Mythen die als Schranke zum Glück im Leben und in Beziehungen stehen, zu konfrontieren. Erfolg war definiert durch Geld, den perfekten Ehemann und Erfolg im Beruf. Und trotzdem, fragte sie sich, wer ist schon durch und durch glücklich? Alle Leute, die das alles erreicht haben, sind die wirklich glücklich? Ziemlich ahrscheinlich, aber immer noch gesucht: ein Partner (M bis 50) in den LRB ads. Soviel zur Sucht nach Bestrafung. Nicht zu erwähnen mein lebenslanges Elend. Na los, streng dich an. Box no. 0942.128
“A 1:128 working scale model of the Karakumsky Canal”
In April 1982, a golfer129 at the City Park West Municipal Golf Course in New Orleans was killed after he threw his golf club against a golf cart in frustration. The club snapped and the bottom half of the club rebounded and stabbed him in the throat. This wasn’t the thing that killed the golfer, however. He was killed when he pulled the club head from his neck, thereby increasing the blood flow and loss from his jugular vein. This, and many more golfing tales, from unemployed after-dinner speaker and part-time pastry chef (M, 58). Box no. 9651.
I composed this advert on the anniversary of the first performance of Das Rheingold for a very good reason.130 Man, 59. Box no. 7011.
My lunch is my life. Amateur griddle chef (M, 51). Box no. 5689.
3 June, 1844. 12 December, 1878. 1 December, 1900. 28 December, 1907. 1 September, 1914. 21 February, 1918. 26 September, 1955. 18 June, 1987. 3 June, 1957. All days on which various species of bird became extinct.131 Apart from the last one—that’s my birthday! Man. Box no. 9611.
There is only one recorded instance of an elephant being sentenced to death by hanging. It was Mary, a circus elephant, in Erwin, Tennessee, September 1916.132 At the first attempt, the chain placed around her neck snapped under the poor beast’s great weight, but the second try was all too successful. Woman, currently researching animal public executions, seeks man to 40 for nights of gentle sobbing and repeating the words ‘why, God, why?’ while shaking clenched fists at the ceiling. Must have own car. Box no. 6900.
6.10am, January 19, 1977. Snow falls for the first time on West Palm Beach. The snow spreads to Fort Lauderdale by 8.30am, continuing south to Miami and Homestead. At Crandon Park Zoo, heat lamps are brought in to protect the iguanas. True story. Man (35) incapable of making any point whatsoever would like to meet woman to 40 for nights of awkward smiles and sentences that peter off in the middle. Box no. 5991.
In February next year I will begin work in my garden on a 1:128 working scale model of the Karakumsky Canal, which stretches 1,200km from Haun-Khan t
o Ashkhabad, Turkmenistan. It irrigates a course of 800km and is the largest in the world. Now make love to me. Man, 53. Kettering.133 Box no. 5889.
Marry me and I will grant you access to the finest collection of mounted albino tiger barbs this side of Gloucester. Osteopath and weekend taxidermist (M, 43). Box no. 4801.
I hope you’re sitting down while reading because this advert might just excite your socks off! Man, 37. Box no. 7695.
The only thing missing in this column is an amphibious car expert who specialises in insurance and reinsurance consultancy. Man, 45. Amphibious car expert specialising in insurance and reinsurance consultancy. Box no. 6011.
A friend once bought me a pair of novelty underpants that had a caption on the front reading ‘In case of fire break glass’. I didn’t understand what it meant until they did actually catch fire in the tumble dryer because they were acrylic and I had the setting on too high. The door melted shut and sure enough I had to break the glass to put the fire out. Replacement dryers are very expensive. As such I would like to meet a nice woman who won’t set fire to my underpants. Stupid, stupid man, 51. Box no. 8050.