Classified Courtship on Rise in Lonely ‘90s

When you’re alone and lonely in the big city, you have to start somewhere, and it might as well be in the personal columns of a newspaper you know others of your age read. More and more people are doing just that.

“Ten years ago, people I certainly wouldn’t have expected to do that sort of thing are doing it now,” says Carolyn Saari, a psychotherapist and professor at Loyola University’s School of Social Work.

Saari said growth of the ads is due to the difficulty of meeting people in big cities.

“There are tremendous numbers of single people out there who are very lonely and feeling very unattached, for whom there are not readily available groups for them to go to,” she said.

Saari fears that the trend is dangerous. “They’re meeting people they know absolutely nothing about.”

But Dr. Michael Broder, a psychologist and author of “The Art of Living Single,” highly recommends the ads.

“The more people you meet, the better your chances are of finding the right partner,” Broder said. “It’s not unlike a job search. There are ways to screen people out very quickly.”

He said the ads are popular because “there are a lot more single people nowadays” and because of aging, unattached baby-boomers.

Alexa Smith, who studies consumers’ lifestyle trends for The Research Department in New York, called the ads part of “a burgeoning industry” of dating and telephone services aimed at singles.

Neither she nor newspaper and advertising associations had any statistics on the number of personal ads. But various papers spoke of significant increases.

In Chicago, for example, personals help fill four to five pages in The Reader, an alternative weekly newspaper.

Tom Yoder, advertising director of The Reader and publisher of Washington City Paper, said The Reader averages about 280 ads a week and the Washington paper about 270.

Both figures represent about a 50% increase in the last two years, he said.

Martha Sturgeon of New York magazine said personal ads have increased steadily over the last few years. “I think we probably have 150 to 200 a week.”

The Reader groups the ads according to “Men Seeking Women,” “Women Seeking Men,” “Men Seeking Men,” “Women Seeking Women” and “Other.” The last category recently featured a couple seeking a bisexual friend and a man seeking a transvestite “for fine dining, travel, caring.”

But more common than “Other” ads are ones like these:

* “SWF, 23, dark blonde, hazel eyes, great smile, sick of the bar scene. Relaxed, traditional, bright, good sense of humor. Interests include skiing, music, romance, the outdoors. Seeks no smoking/drugs, educated SWM, 23-35, with similar interests. The right guy will take a chance and call.”

* “SJM, 33, 5’7”, 140, in creative profession, Richard Dreyfuss looking for a ‘90s Annie Hall ready to give it up. Call if you are creative, polite, humorous, entertaining, articulate and can appreciate St. Lucia in January, canoeing in Wisc., toy helicopters, Dostoyevsky, pizza, improv, BBQ in the back yard.”

Donna Platt, a 33-year-old sales manager from a “traditional, upper-middle-class North Shore family,” advertised after some friends had good luck with ads.

“It’s just really hard to meet people,” she said. “I’m not really one for bars.”

For safety, a newspaper-operated toll phone took her calls. And she always met new dates in public places.

A 48-year-old Chicago bachelor who advertised had no problems but acknowledged “there are a lot of crazy people out there, and you never know if you might be placing yourself in danger.”

Still, the man, who didn’t want his name used, called the ads an “efficient way of meeting a great number of people fast.”

As for Broder, he’s so sold on personal ads that his book even advises readers how to write an effective one.

“There’s a lot of pain out there,” he said, “and my job is to help people cope with that.”