Jenn--

[houseelf]

I'm wildly curious after reading your journal entry about the personal ad that you and your two friends created which resulted in your meeting Rick. Did they find true love too? I'm trying to convince my best friend to go this route and I'd love to give her anecdotal evidence of the success rate. She is a gorgeous, successful, incredibly kind, interesting, articulate 32 year old who has had no luck in the man department but is unwilling to try want ads/services/etc.

Kelly

[Auspicious]

Two of my friends met their husbands this way (actually one of them isn't married yet--they just got engaged Christmas Eve). From my perspective the anecdotal evidence is strongly positive and I would be willing to try it myself if I were ever back in the dating pool. But I would be very, very careful (because clearly, some people are crazy).

There's a series of stories on Salon.com that explores the pros and cons of this practice and the way it's become especially trendy lately. A lot of it's about the edgier side of online dating, but I thought it was all pretty interesting:


http://archive.salon.com/mwt/feature/20 ... ne_dating/

http://archive.salon.com/mwt/col/heaven ... aven_hell/
[/i]

I met a boyfriend (now exboyfriend, but we're still friends) through answering his online dating ad. If I remember correctly, it was through excite.com's personals. A friend who I worked with (at the time) met his boyfriend so I thought, "what the heck?" I didn't place a personal ad, but answered ones...and only ones where pictures were included I dated the bf for 8 months before we broke up b/c of timing reasons. We still keep in touch now. The other thing I did was only answer ads of people who were in my area...I've never been one for long distance relationships. In any case, I thought it was a great way to meet people as long as you're careful. Then again, you should be careful anytime you meet someone!

Sharon

[DCJenn]

Kelly-

It was pretty funny- neither of them met their 'true love' at that time- but Carin had a ton of great dates. She met the guys she's now dating through her massage therapist. My friend Leslie hated the entire thing and was really negative about the guys and the whole experience. So, she did "It's just Lunch" which matches people up and they go out for lunch based on answers to the questionnaires they complete. She paid a huge amount of money and got 18 dates. It was a good experience in that it helped her realize that the reason successful entrapreneurs are successful is that they are married to their jobs!!! She had dates with lawyers and guys who ran their own businesses and a few CPA types. Some were really good-looking she said, but pretty much they were wierd or socially retarded or were looking for arm candy themselves. So, what does she do? Decides to give online dating a try and is now looking at rings with the first guy who answered her ad...

Jenn

PS Our ad ran on digitalcity.com and both girls mentioned above used match.com