It Was Love at First Sight . . . of Her Personal Ad

Chase, there’s something I want to tell you.

Whoever you are, wherever you are, I’m rooting for you.

You see, Chase, I saw your personal ad and though it wasn’t meant for me--I’m not the gorgeous blonde you saw driving the blue Probe that day--I truly hope you meet her. I hope you both find what you’re looking for, and if that turns out to be each other, well, wouldn’t that be a beautiful thing?

And so, Chase, I want to help. With Valentine’s Day just two days away and the news sadly obsessed with sex, sex, sex, I wish to promote the cause of Cupid and love, love, love. And that is why I now give a wider audience to the ad you placed in that chronicle of the human condition that is known as “the personals”:

BLUE PROBE SOUTHBOUND 405 AT 101. 5 p.m. Beautiful towhead, black sunglasses. Passenger in black sedan, baseball hat and gold glasses, was too shy. Let’s meet. Chase, Call Box #23542.

Ah, the freeway of amour.

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Any lonely soul who has ever exchanged looks across a crowded freeway knows what Chase must have been thinking when he placed that ad in the LA Weekly’s catalog of “Chance Meetings.”

Maybe she’ll see the ad. Maybe she’ll call, chat, laugh. Maybe we’ll fall in love, get married, make babies, live happily ever after! And what a great story to tell the grand kids!

But even Chase must know the odds are stacked against him. The chances of the woman (assuming Chase means a woman) simply seeing the ad are awfully slim; the odds of her calling slimmer still. And if by chance Chase meets the woman in the blue Probe, it would probably end after one date.

Most personals, of course, have nothing to do with chance encounters. This newspaper’s Dateline ads every Friday and Sunday are a coded bulletin board loaded with hundreds of ads featuring various combinations of the letters SMFWBAHJ. A SWJF who is VGL is a Very Good Looking Single White Jewish Female. If you already knew that, you probably like long walks on the beach.

Some people attach a stigma to the personals. They see in the ads something desperate. But the ads can be effective.

Screenwriter Lynette Prucha says her friends “were very leery” when she placed an ad that began “GREAT LEGS. . .” in the Weekly last August in hopes of meeting a man outside show biz. “They thought I was playing with fire,” she says.

Prucha says she had about 70 responses and dated several men, “all professional and very nice.” On Sept. 21, she met Dr. Rick Chavez. They are now engaged with a wedding date set for Aug. 22.

Taken individually or together, the personals could be read as a mysterious form of poetry--and one that has become astonishingly popular.

Consider: Nine years ago, the LA Weekly could fit its personals on two pages. One spring issue carried 73 ads for “Men Seeking Women,” 12 for “Women Seeking Men,” 23 for “Men Seeking Men,” nine for “Women Seeking Women” and one labeled “Either.” (The latter was placed by a female “singer-songwriter” who described herself as “progressive” and “intense.”)

The latest LA Weekly, by contrast, devotes 11 pages to its personals. I counted 349 ads for “Men Seeking Women” and 250 for “Women Seeking Men.” (Wouldn’t it be nice if the people who placed these ads could meet?) And while The Times’ Dateline offers a “50 Plus” listing, the Weekly has branched beyond the lone “Either” listing of 1989 to include all sorts of “Alternative” listings. Call me old-fashioned, but doesn’t “Alternative Bisexual” sound redundant? So why the explosion in personal ads? Is loneliness on the rise? Have the fading practices of the dinner party and the blind date changed our mating rituals? Have fears of sexual harassment chilled romance in the workplace?

A recent Time/CNN poll found that 51% of adult Americans believe it is “always unacceptable” for a boss and an employee to become sexually involved. Which makes me ask: What if they’re in love? Doesn’t anyone believe in romance? Can’t we just be happy for them?

But I digress. In fact, the personal ad profusion can be traced to technology and economics. Not long ago, people were charged to place an ad. Now placing the ads is free. Readers who respond now dial 900 numbers and are charged by the minute.

Some people may place more than one ad, trying different sales pitches. For that matter, bogus ads may be placed in search of cheap laughs. It isn’t hard to imagine other types of manipulation.

But it seems reasonable to assume that most ads are genuine. Certainly that seems reasonable for Chase and others who describe chance encounters. Twenty-five such ads appeared in a recent issue:

MARK, SKATER IN VAN NUYS. You lost the New Year’s party bet and I want to collect. Hope to hear from you. Stephanie, Skater in Venice. Call. . .

SANTA MONICA BUS STOP SUNDAY 1/4 You: stunning Hispanic beauty with friend, asked about bus to Hollywood. I directed you to the library. My bus came too soon . . .

AMBER. OUTSIDE THE BODHI TREE, early November. We compared tattoos and talked about spirituality. You: petite, with two mermaids on the small of your back. . .

And so on.

So here’s hoping that Stephanie collects on her wager, that fortune smiles on the man whose bus came too soon, and that Amber looks up the tattooed man.

And as for Chase, let me share a true story about roadway romance.

Years ago, back in college, my buddy Pete and I were returning from a cross-country road trip. I was driving through Phoenix when I locked eyes with the eyes in the rearview mirror in front of me. She had a friend too.

For miles our paths coincided. They turned and smiled, we smiled back. And then--I kid you not--they started removing articles of clothing and tossing them into the back seat. It was hard to see, but I think they were wearing swimsuits.

Now, I had a girlfriend waiting for me back home. But Pete didn’t.

We came to a fork in the road. They went right, alas, and I went left on to the interstate.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” Pete screamed.

Chase, I want you to know that Pete is now happily married and the father of two sons. We remain close friends, though he has never forgiven me for what I did that day. I still wonder about it myself.

In fact, if by chance anybody out there is female and you were driving in Phoenix in 1976 and this story rings a bell, well. . .

Well, um, I guess I already have a Valentine.

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Scott Harris’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Readers may write to him at The Times’ Valley Edition, 20000 Prairie St. , Chatsworth 91311, or via e-mail at scott.harris@latimes.com Please include a phone number.