Craigslist
Cool. One of the other locals recently posted in his LJ that there is a Craigslist for the area now. I haven't made use of it yet, but I'm hoping that there will be enough traffic on it to be useful. I am trying to get rid of the wrong HP toner cartridge that I bought by accident and can't return; also, I might want to sell off some of my stuff before I leave the area.
In case you're curious, yes, I did bother checking the personals, just out of curiosity. And no, not the 'casual encounters' section. There's actually nothing in either 'men seeking women' or 'women seeking men.'
It seems like a difficult "starting problem"--who wants to be the first (and possibly only) personal up on Craigslist? Seems like it could easily be a shoot-the-moon low spot on the pathos scale.
PS--I know that some of you (you know who you are) are probably are thinking of writing a personal ad for me. Be warned: surely, no good can come of this.
posted by Bats @ 8:12 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
...whereas "Men Seeking Men" had sex ads starting from the 20th...
Oh don't worry - Jean and I were going to wait until AFTER you move back to Boston to post a personal ad on Craig's List for you.
Nothing good can come of trying to find a relationship via craigslist personals! Oh, wait, that's probably just me projecting again.
Seriously, though, in my very limited experience, meeting somebody through personals ups the tension when you meet. It's basically Relationship-Or-Bust. It's harder to figure out whether you actually like the person as a friend when you're also dating them. This may be endemic to the dating problem in general - I don't have enough experience to judge. And I may be projecting too much. Eit!
Oh don't worry - Jean and I were going to wait until AFTER you move back to Boston to post a personal ad on Craig's List for you.
Heh. That must be your plan to try to ensure that I stay in the Boston area, right? (<Eastern european old man accent>"And zo... ve marry off our daughters to the wandering strangers from afar... and then... they stay..."</Eastern european old man accent>)
Seriously, though, in my very limited experience, meeting somebody through personals ups the tension when you meet. It's basically Relationship-Or-Bust.
Interesting. Harlan Ellison had the point that personals ads/services have the effect of removing a level of artifice in the courtship dance: "Maybe I'm looking, but I'm too cool to let that show." I can see you point--removing that "defense" level ends up putting pressure on both parties, as a result.
yeah, the ithaca one sucks, because there's just not that much traffic.
at least you can generally find people you recognize in the missed connections bit. (HEY! DID YOU SEE YOU'RE ON CRAIGSLIST! YEAH!)
i put up a profile on okcupid yesterday, sort of to see what it was like to do it, sort of to find true love, that kind of thing. i'm still not sure about it...
josakana
Yeah, it was good for me to remove the Ellison level of artifice a couple times. By taking the personals option, I couldn't wuss out and never go on a date. It threw me into the dating pool and made me try to swim. And I learned from the experience.
The problem is that if you start that way, it's harder to end up with a friendly non-relationship outcome. If you start off fuzzy, you can be more diplomatic ("I'm not interested in dating at this time", "I'm not ready for a relationship", etc.) But if you start off through the personals, none of those work, and you have to say "I'm not interested in dating you specifically", and then feelings get hurt and stuff. Plus, if you're me, you wuss out at actually having that confrontation and let things keep on trucking further than they really should. Projecting? Never.
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