My friend, let's call her Monkey Girl, is looking for a boyfriend. At least I think she's looking for a boyfriend, she might just be looking for someone to kiss and mess up her hair. But it would be better if you were looking for something long term, because the short term stuff just ends up breaking your heart and if you did that to her I would know what you look like and I would glare at you whenever we passed in the street. And believe me, I can pass you in the street more times than you want to know.
She likes to draw. She likes the indie music. She likes monkeys and cats and, inexplicably, Sacramento. She also likes sushi, even the kind with avocado which is just gross but sometimes you just need to accept people's failings and it's not like you're all that perfect anyway, are you?
She likes movies with Gene Wilder in them, how cool is that? If you know all the words to "Pure Imagination" you should consider responding to this ad. If you don't you should go and rent Willy Wonka and watch it over and over until you can and then consider responding. If you can't do that you should probably hit 'back' twice and then click 'Casual Encounters' and call it a night. Sorry.
She also likes thrift shopping. In fact, "likes" is probably too tame. She is a thriftaholic which means she has all sorts of nifty nick knacks and nice clothes and shoes and stuff in that thrift chic kind of way.
She likes red wine, but not in a snooty way. I've seen her drink beer, and I bet she even burps if provoked. She also likes scrabble and always gets the good tiles even when I cheat, IT IS NO FAIR.
She has nice glasses and is a little geeky. Not in the 50th level elf kind of way, and not in the 'only girl who would go with you to the prom' kind of way. More like the has a web page (no, not a blog), checks her e-mail first thing when she gets home kind of way. You could be a little geeky too. It's a good thing.
She has pretty good taste in books, and she knows how to drive stick. She takes nice photographs and she likes to camp. If you don't like camping, I hope you didn't just watch Willy Wonka a hundred times, because if you did you just wasted $3 on a movie rental.
She's not crazy about dating. That's a point in your favor because she's probably not looking to be impressed. Just an interesting, geeky guy, who knows how to ask a girl questions. You could see a movie, or go to the flea market or something. No pressure.
Did I mention she's cute? Also she's 29 years old which is a good age to be, unless you aren't because then you spend your life wishing you were. Sigh.
If you've made it this far, you're probably about ready to fall asleep. So go take a nap and when you're feeling fresh come back and write.I 'll pick the good ones and send them on to her. Some quick tips for those who need them (feel free to skip this part if you're a brainiac with social graces):
* You should be pretty close to her age. That means 27 to 30-something. If the 'something' in 30-something is 5 or greater you'd better be able to knock her socks off because if you can't she's going to send me instant messages all day long saying "But he's 35!". So just don't put me through that, okay? I'm frazzled enough.
* You should send a picture. Of your face. If you send a picture of your 'unit' I probably will forward it to her, but then we will laugh at you, and just the mention of your name will probably crack us up for the rest of our lives.
* Don't stress too much because we want a photo. I'll forward any e-mail from any guy who seems interesting. It's pretty easy. I'm sure she and I have totally different ideas about what's attractive. Besides, I'm already taken, so it's not like I'm going to hit on you.
* Say something about yourself. It could be your best thrift score, the last book you read, your favorite episode of "This American Life". Try to be interesting but don't feel like you have to push it.
* If your e-mail starts "Hi. I saw your ad and liked what you had to say. Here's some stuff about me:" and then goes on to talk about how you're a guitar god, or a married guy looking for something 'discete' or any other of those cut and paste types, don't bother. I won't even see it. My procmail filter will just silently forward your e-mail on to every spam-bot known to man. I suppose it is fairly impressive that you wrote a perl script to reload the W4M ads every ten minutes and reply to all the new ones, but seriously: don't.