Imperfectly Yours : Relationships: Dating wanna-bes are beginning to discover that truth, humor and a little marketing savvy can go a long way in getting reponses to a personal ad.

For singles, reading the personal ads can begin as a lark and quickly become an exercise in intimidation.

“Every personal ad seems to start out, ‘Really attractive,’ ‘Good looking’ or ‘Class act,’ ” moaned one divorcee recently after poring over the “Matchmaker, Matchmaker” section of Los Angeles magazine during her lunch hour. Modesty, it seems, has no place in the personals.

But look closer. In between the Tom Cruise dead ringers and those brainy beauties who are “45-but-look-35” are some real people.

A few advertisers are acknowledging their imperfections--mentioning their love handles, balding pates, bad habits and personality quirks. Self-deprecating humor and marketing savvy also are creeping into personal ads.

Editors of single publications, ad-takers and other observers stop short of calling this a trend.

It’s more like a trickle.

Recent personal ads, for instance, have promoted:

* A “chubby, funny guy” looking for a “chubette.”

* A “slightly out of kilter” single father is looking for an asymmetrical woman in September’s Los Angeles magazine.

* A man who says he is frustrated with “everything on the outside, nothing on the inside types” headlines his plea with: “Plain Jane desired!”

* One woman promises “a free pen with every date,” while another man admits he is “not financially secure” and has a “colorful past.”

* One wanna-be Romeo acknowledges he is semi-neurotic but getting better, with the therapy bills to prove it.

* Another advertiser allows that his appearance is inversely related to lighting--in total darkness, he looks absolutely gorgeous.

* And a 250-pound school photographer lists her weight.

Coming clean and getting funny in the personals? What gives here?

Well, such honesty might result in a more compatible date, hopes Michael Dunne, 33, a Los Angeles writer who recently placed an ad in which he owned up to being a smoker and said good looks aren’t critical in his partner.

“I’m not a movie star and I’m not rich,” Dunne said in an interview.

“I don’t even like to go to the beach much,” he said, noting that many men, in personal ads, profess their love for sandy, moonlight walks. “I like to crawl around museums and look at interesting architecture.

“A lot of ads stipulate nonsmokers,” he added. “If I didn’t deal with my smoking in the ad, the question would probably come up down the line. I wanted to be upfront.”

Karen Courtney, a 25-year-old school photographer, bills herself as a “big, cute Bohemian, 250 (pounds) . . .” in her LA Weekly ad. In the past, she placed ads without mentioning her weight but found it always came up in phone conversations with respondents. Listing her size, she finds, weeds out men “who expect everyone to look like (super model) Christie Brinkley.”

Doug Dowd, a 37-year-old comedy writer who describes himself as a “chubby smoker” in his ad, agrees.

“Why hide my weight?” asked Dowd, who stands 5-feet-9 and weighs 265. “I am not attracted to thin women anyway. I like women similar to me. The last woman I dated was about three sizes smaller than Roseanne Barr. I would still be dating her if she had not moved away.” His ideal date, he said, should also follow an exercise schedule similar to his: “I work out once every three, four years, tops.”

The woman offering free pens is a 39-year-old teacher who says she wants to attract someone with a good sense of humor. “I wanted my ad to stand out from those serious ads,” she said.

The movement to honesty and humor is “a neat, new marketing approach,” said Marc Schoen, a psychologist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Acknowledging imperfections can be healthy, he said.

“People may be coming to grips with their own limitations. We all grew up with this American Dream mentality. You know, ‘Don’t ever compromise.’ Then people began to realize they are not finding the perfect house, the perfect job or the perfect partner. I wonder if we’re just starting to see people becoming more honest with themselves and about themselves,” Schoen said.

Such truth-in-advertising might also be a way “to look for reassurance in a scary arena,” Schoen suggested.

“Perhaps the advertiser thinks, ‘If I have told them a fault of mine and they are still interested, wow.’ ”

Admitting your shortcomings early can help minimize rejection, agreed Dr. Charlotte Thompson, a San Francisco physician and author of “Single Solutions: An Essential Guide for the Single Career Woman” (Branden Publishing, 1990, $11.95).

“A woman who notes that she is ‘full-figured’ may have been hurt in the past by comments about her weight,” Thompson said, adding that she is less comfortable with self-deprecating ads: “If someone really deprecates himself, I would have reservations about answering” because it might indicate the individual has low self-esteem.

But others say such self-deprecating humor spurs them to action. The out-of-kilter father’s ad was the only one from a sea of possibilities to attract the woman who read personal ads on her lunch hour. “It jumped out at me because it was so funny,” said the woman, who responded to the ad immediately.

But what about the real bottom line? Can truth, humor and marketing savvy fill your mailbox faster than hyperbole?

Maybe. Courtney got 10 responses shortly after her ad appeared, but isn’t yet picking out china patterns. Other truthful or funny advertisers say they hope more responses will arrive.

But the teacher who offers free pens is content, for now, knowing that humor isn’t a lost art.

“One caller wanted to know if I were a Bic pen company representative,” she said. “Someone else called and said, ‘I’m not interested in a date, but I sure could use a pen.’ ”