The Personal Ad

...that ended up getting me kicked off Lavalife - circa Fall 2003. I knew it was kicking around here somewhere. Please no snickering, here ya go:

You and I can wander on long walks, wondering at the marvels of the Earth and the secret cosmic destiny of humanity; or we can sit around and complain about the weather and those disappointing Toronto Maple Leafs -- whatever floats your boat.

Me? I have two degrees (economics, linguistics) and next year will be starting a third—in that narrow academic sense you could say I'm ‘intelligent.’ I'm a humour writer, a former reporter who ran the university newspaper; you might call me ‘interesting’ too. Heck, you might even call me 'left-handed' and 'prone to sinus colds,' but that's irrelevant now isn't it.

I have dual Italian-Canadian citizenship; so if there are any Italians out there who want to chat, great. But by no means do I discriminate based on ethnicity, religion, hair colour, tattoos, cola brand preference, or most any other sociocultural shibboleth. My experience is that if you brush your teeth regularly and have some respect for your body and for the way you smell--that means no smoking--we should get along.

The one thing you DO need is a sense of humour. I'll make jokes on those walks of ours; I’ll feel ripped off if you don’t ever laugh. Don't make me tell my friends you're a joyless granny who picks her nose and hates children.

Contact me; send a ‘nod' or a ‘wink’ or a ‘collect call’ or a ‘complimentary cocktail’ or a ‘come-hither stare’. Flash me your goodies, I’ll do the same; especially if you're the woman of my never-dared-to dreams, destined to bring me joy forever until the stars explode and death does us part... Good luck with that last bit ;-) I'll settle for beer and wings on a Tuesday night.

Romantic relationships? Well, if you're like me scouring the twisted corridors of lavalife, then you'll agree that the universe sends us signals all the time, but we are always hedging our bets, too opportunistic to just take one good message and run with it. We don’t trust each other, because we know that each of us is human and therefore fallible. And some people put their faith in technology and computers (and online dating) for the same reason that I don't: precisely because those things aren't human. And yet computers are certainly creations of the human brain, the mushy tissue that coordinates itself by some divine miracle or some hyper-logical neural net (whatever religion you decide to believe in--Darwin or God--it's still a miracle) and gives birth to our irrational consciousness. But enough quasi-theological cognitive philosophy... I just want a spontaneous(ly combusting) woman who's also
pretty hot.

epilogue: they refused to let me post this ad, because it mentioned 'lavalife' in it; I got upset and made fun of them in my next ad, comparing the administrators to Stalinist censors; reactionary babies, they suspended my account; a week later I was reinstated, never went on a lava date again. but see Chateau Nice for more recent shenanigans.