My friend Leigh got eight winks yesterday. Electronic winks. She's joined an online personals service, and winks are icebreakers that singles send to attractive members of the opposite sex.
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On the Web site there's a pull-down menu of "winks" to choose from. Most lines, such as, "Hi, how are you" or "Care to make a date?", are pretty tame,
Others get to the point more quickly: "Call the fire department, you're smoking"; or "pass the tartar sauce, you're a great catch." My personal favorite? "Hand me my flip-flops 'cause you've knocked my socks off!" Got to love a guy who sends a message like that.
Personals have gone high-tech with features such as winks, text-message flirting and personality matching, and lots of people are placing ads. Leigh was looking for men between 35 and 45 within 50 miles of Augusta, and when she typed in her data, she found 500 matches.
Who would have thought this was such a mecca for single males? Apparently, the Garden City is raining men; hailing hotties. Five hundred guys? How would she ever choose?
Leigh spent the afternoon sorting through scads of advertisements. Most were eliminated based on their photos, and not because the men looked like Quasimodo. Instead they got the boot because most of their pictures resembled mug shots. Leigh rejected snapshots that were too light, too dark or shaved off their subjects' left ears. (A few photos also cut out ex-girlfriends.)
Those who posed in a hat, bandana or doo-rag were discarded. (What were they hiding under their headgear, Leigh wondered. A comb-over? Frizz? Liver spots?) Men drinking beer, sprawled on couches or wearing mirrored sunglasses and/or Speedo swimsuits also failed to make the grade.
Next, Leigh scrutinized the ads' contents. Bad spellers (Devorced single seeks same) were tossed, as were guys who composed their ads in lowercase letters (my name is todd, and i want a hot gurl). Some were too cutesy (Snuggle Bug Looking for Cuddly Wuddly), too weird (Puppet Master Looking for Vixen Vampiress), or too married (Committed Man Seeks Liaison with Discreet Female).
Other ads lost points for being unoriginal. Apparently, Augusta teems with men who are "hopeless romantics" with "sensitive sides." Hordes of males advertised themselves as "knowing how to treat a lady," and dozens more yearned for walks in the rain with "that special someone."
Some men failed to pass muster because of incompatibility issues. Leigh is not much of a fly-fisher, and she doesn't have her own Harley. She nixed a guy who said, "must love pythons and other reptiles" and turned down another who favors monster truck rallies on the first date.
When Leigh had finally finished weeding, she was left with 20 ads.
"The rain has slowed to a drizzle," she said.
I sympathized but told her 20 men are better than zero. Plus, as most single women know, a drizzle is almost always preferable to a drought.
AUGUSTA RESIDENT KARIN GILLESPIE IS THE AUTHOR OF BET YOUR BOTTOM DOLLAR. SHE CAN BE REACHED THROUGH HER WEB SITE AT WWW.KARINGILLESPIE.COM.
