LRB Personals

I'm reading one of my birthday presents at the moment: They Call Me Naughty Lola: Personal Ads from the London Review of Books. Because I love the LRB personals.

This of course leads me to the question, what would I write for an LRB personal? (which of course I would never do, because I'm too cheap--also not from London, but I'm not sure if that's relevant or not)

"Anne of Green Gables meets Laurie Colwin WLTM a corduroy and elbow-patches academic who likes to cook and write letters and explore."

Okay, so that's no where near sarcastic and self-deprecating enough.

"First-born, bossy, obsessively neat, inflexible, categorizing woman WLTM a man who is none of those things, but not exactly not those things, either."

Hmm ... that wasn't sufficiently jaded about love.

"I'm only happy when it rains, so we should break up occasionally. Dramatic woman for tempestuous man to 36."

Some favorites from the book:

"Romance is dead. So is my mother. Man, 42, inherited wealth. Box no. 7654."

"Box no. 0408. I missed my period. Box no. 7546."

"Don't reply to this ad -- I'll only end up confessing that the thing about having a second book deal was a lie and there is no author tour in the pipeline. Man, 39, just secured second book deal and about to embark on author tour. Box no. 8676."

"How can I follow that? Man, 47. Gives up easily. Box no. 9547."

The book benefits from the editor's footnotes, which are fairly sarcastic themselves. For instance:

"... [Looking for] easily impressed woman to forty who knows when not to question a man's Latin and knowledge of sea-bass mating seasons.*"

*Spring (UK, offshore).

"With Oxford bi-plane modeller (M, 51), patience and innovation are a daily experience.So too, however, is gluing my head to my shoulder. Cyanoacrylate,* and a whole lot of lovin', please, to box no. 7990."

*Major component of substances such as methyl-2-cyanoacrylate, also known as superglue, and the surgical glue 2-octyl cyanoacrylate. Can be softened by liberal applications of acetone, which is found in nail-polish remover.

The other amazing thing about this collection is how many old people are in it--I mean, we're talking about 81 year-olds who write from and about their nursing homes.'

These ads are witty and charming and also confusing: the writers are clearly depressed about love, and it's unclear whether or not they'd really like responses to their ads. Above all, they're honest. The volume ends with an extended footnote that is a chronology of Evel Knievel's falls and jumps over the years, implicitly noting that though love beats us up, we keep coming back for more.


(picture)