Everything's all right in this world, I believe, when we can hope that Harry and Sally will finally get together and serve a coconut wedding cake with sauce - on the side.
But movies aside, I don't need the soaps or trashy novels to get my quota of romance.I do the personal ads.
A reporter is paid to observe, briefly, a lot of other people's lives - survivors mostly, of accidents or City Council fights.
Maybe that's why I like the personals so much. For me, they serve up vicarious affairs: romance once-removed. Through a picture window of newspaper ink, I get to observe the hopeful new beginnings of love-bloodied survivors. All this free, without having to pull out my notepad and pen.
"I never thought I'd place an ad, but here goes. I'm 41 and my interests include windsurfing, backcountry and resort skiing, rafting, playing banjo, canyon country in the spring, laughter and the survival of the planet. Looking for an attractive female, 25-40, who has self esteem and an enthusiasm for life and activity. If you never thought you'd answer an ad, call me. Maybe we'll both be surprised." - from the Private Eye's Eyecatcher Ads, July 3, 1990.
By reading the personals I can eavesdrop on romantic possibilities. Just like Madonna, I can desperately seek a someone without ever leaving the comfort of my own answering machine. No effort to be charming required.
Hey, I can read the personal ads without having to shave my legs.
"Barred to Tears: I like to go out as much as the next person, but weeding through all the nightclub chatter - of which there is much - bores me and costs too much money. My friend did this and it worked great for her; now it's my turn. Let's go out - and dance and drink and party - but on my terms."
Networking. Advertising. Positioning. Marketing. The buzzwords of a business world spill into our personal lives. Maybe personal ads are the mixers of an Information Age, an era penciled with time management plans rather than dance cards.
The personals are one medium where the credibility of the advertiser is constantly called into question. A friend who worked as a typesetter at Happy Ads, one of Salt Lake's free weekly shoppers, thinks the personal columns make a quick-read kind of fiction. "Tall, handsome, ambitious 28-year-old," read the copy of one advertiser who appeared on the far side of her desk. "This was a guy who was kind of plump, probably closer to 35. And I guess handsome is in the eye of the beholder. So I asked him if he was placing the ad for himself, and he said: `Yes.' "
My favorites, culled from years of mining personal columns in several states, have a cynical edge.
-"Unattractive boring chick with limited interests seeks immediate marriage with the perfect man."
-"Open-minded feminist, 38, now allowing men to buy her drinks."
-"Losing dog, wants woman who can cook, dance and kiss."
-"Boring, lazy, indifferent female, 40s, seeks nice, regular guy to jerk around, holler at and lie to."
-"No police record! Well, one stresses one's strong points..."
Not that advertising for love is a modern invention. In the tradition of the Wild West, a male-flooded frontier sought mail-order brides. A new age of personals debuted in the free-love-spirited 1960s in the Berkeley Barb and Village Voice, then the New York Review of Books. Personals have grown as mainstream as any love-shopping technique, so middle-of-the-road that they provide easy material for stand-up comics.
In fact, now there's a whole magazine devoted to advertising warm-hearted men in Alaska, one of the few frontiers left in a country where supply outpaces demand.
Womens magazines tout personal advertising as a marketing method to jump-start a stalled love life. There are books published about how to write them, another eccentricity of an upscale generation who seek personal trainers in every aspect of their lives.
"DWM . . . seeks quiet times and warm conversation with 30ish SWF. Loves kids and outdoors. Must not be afraid of smiles and pizza. Freckles are a plus."
I find a voyeuristic pleasure in reading about the "young entrepreneur with vast life experience, very open-minded," who is out looking for a "woman confident in herself who wants to live life fully." Actually meeting him might spoil the joy.
And it's much more fun to think about the witty, flattering words I would pile up to describe myself then to actually do it. Besides, personally speaking, I'm afraid of truth-in-advertising laws.
Reading other people's romantic checklists brings me the same sense of victory as handing over hangers of clothing to the salesclerk at the door of a dressing room. I've checked out the possibilities, thank you very much, and there's nothing here I can't live without today. As a shopping veteran, it's sometimes enough to know there are new possibilities Out There.