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The Personals
Like the background implies, you may run into a lot of HOT AIR. Learning to read between the lines and not to make an idiot of yourself is something you need to pick up before you pick up anything ELSE. < grin >

I'm great at this, so listen up.

I'm not about to convince you to use the Personals if you have some serious issues with using them. However, if you are considering using them and are a little apprehensive--that's something else.

You need to be able to write down exactly and I mean EXACTLY what you are looking for. And STATE it in your ad, if you should choose to write one. Some people just cruise the ads without putting an ad of their own in, or they put one in if required but keep it "private" (not open to searches) so they can be in the system but nobody writes to them...they do the writing to OTHERS instead. It's kind of a control issue, I guess. (see more about Do's and Don'ts far down below).

Pay - vs. Free Personals Sites: Pay sites usually mean you have people who are sincere and seriously looking. They put their money where their mouth is. Some sites cost more than others and have a lot of whistles and bells in them (highly detailed descriptions right down to favorite books, movies, music, all that jazz). This doesn't necessarily mean you'll get a really close match, in fact the more stuff you put in, the more stuff that has to match exactly with someone else's for you to get a high percentage rating (you get a percentage rating indicating how close you both are in likes and dislikes). So you could be really well suited for someone but if they said they don't like butter on their popcorn and you did, and then they said they like romance novels instead of non-fiction, you've lost points...and we all know these are non-essentials when it comes to finding the RIGHT person. Basically the search engines are dealing with statistics and probabilities, and mathematical equations, we are not! So don't be fooled by how elaborate the questionnaire is. However, having paid money for membership does indicate sincere interest. Beware joining a site that gives you a lifelong membership or a long-term one paid up front. I know someone who paid for a full year, and a few weeks later the site disappeared off the net altogether. He never got his money back OR even so much as a single date...so pay on a monthly basis if you join a pay site. One pay site I can recommend is Match.com. They give you a free 7 day trial. If you use them, make sure you describe your body type in the text as well as your choice. Some guys figure you may be a woman who THINKS she's fat and is really a size 12. Tell it like it is and don't sugarcoat it! And including a picture is by far the best way to go. Match.com is not geared for large woman enthusiasts OR for women who love large men, either, so if you want to leave the mainstream stuff and get more target-specific....

Yahoo, like other search engines, has a classifieds section that includes Personals. You can find them by going there, or looking at AltaVista, AOL, Hotmail, Excite, Dogpile...you name it. Free Classifieds is something you can find readily. However...a lot of the ads are from less than sincere people or someone who did it just for a joke. Read carefully. You'll see a lot more spamming in these areas than you would in a pay site. If you want to weed through the Sleaze-o's looking for a hot time, this is the place to do it.

Mind you, my honey found ME in the Hotmail classifieds. :-)

I didn't include a glamor photo, I just put that old picture of mine from an old driver's license. In my description I used the term "BBW" (guess what, that is the key word he used when searching--and no he did not have an ad in, anywhere). I stated I had a butt the size of a planet that had it's own gravitational pull; that it had it's own ZIP code, and that I was not about to appologize to anybody for that. I also stated that I wanted a guy who LOVES large women, not one who is willing to make ALLOWANCES for them but actually LOVES them. I then went on to describe to infinite detail the guy I was looking for, and didn't focus so much on me anymore...and I got exactly what I wanted. He must have read that ad and said, This is ME--! and had to answer...even though he lived 300 miles away.

His was not the only response I got, and I did have weed them out til I got to a shorter list.
Then I had trouble remembering who was who.
Then I narrowed it further to some who I talked with on the phone.
Narrowed that even further.
Dated a few.
NARROWED MUCH NARROWER after that..(!).
And then it was down to three guys...then two...then him. A few months later we were living together and we still love it.

(Okay here's my list of good sites:)

GOOD Personals Sites:
I need to point out that if you ARE a BBW you need to keep your eyes wide open even in a site like large and lovely, or any bbw related personals. There are some out there who are so fixated on fat that one woman once jokingly told me she'd rather he dated a can of Crisco, she just felt like she was being used by someone with a fat fetish.

Dating Do's
  • Re-state questions in different ways, to see if you get the same responses.

  • If you ask a series of questions in one email and only a few get answered, look at what was left unanswered--you may learn more than you thought. For instance, if you ask if he's living with someone or is seeing anyone and he ignores that and goes on to tell about how he can't wait to see you...get what I mean? Some people think OMISSION is not LYING. and will swear they've been totally honest with you.

  • Leave word with someone if you go on a date. Make it a daytime thing, lunch only--public place of course. Leave a time you are expected back. Take that person's ph# with you so you can call them and let them know you're okay if the date checks out okay...and you are delayed in returning. Or you may want to call them to get them to call the state troopers--who knows! Make sure your date knows you are expected to check in, too.

  • Make use of the reverse lookups and print out a map of where this person lives! keep it with email you exchanged, put it in an obvious place so if you go missing...well, you know. And I always made a point of telling the date ahead of time that I had this friend I'd left all this info with...if they're on the level, they won't mind a bit. I had a buddy who is an excellent tracker and a handy rifleman, out in the backwoods of Vermont. He insisted I call and let him know I was okay, by a certain hour, because if I didn't...well. It never came to that. My telling ABOUT my buddy was all it took. ;-)
Dating Don'ts
  • Don't give out your whole name, your address, or phone number...reverse lookups will find you easily and they're freely available.

  • Don't fall for any feeble sounding stories. If they can only give you their work number or cell phone number.then they are spoken for...skip that one!!
  • Don't get rid of the emails from nuts. Keep them in a special nut file. You never know, you may have to go back and check your records one day. I got mail from a screwball who had my post office address (never give out more than that!) and he wrote me a post card each day every day for a month, never giving up...he was creepy. I kept his email of course in case I needed to do a reverse search to give to the police. Or in his case, the Mounted Police (he was in Canada, thank goodness).

  • DON'T give out your work number! No matter how badly you want to hear from them.
  • First date...don't get in their car. No matter what, keep your car with you so you can make a getaway if needed. Besides, you don't want to get in a car with a stranger, no matter how much you may think you "know" them.

  • DON'T get rid of all the old email addresses if you commit to one person. You don't know how it will work out. Politely tell everyone you are trying this relationship out, but that you'd like to keep in touch...and DO that.