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No. Just no.

Trust me, no.

Amusing story?

NO NO NO

Unless your idea of a good first date is suffocating to death with a plastic bag tied around your head in some guy's closet with urine stains all over your clothes. Not that this ever happened to me (it didn't). But Shem's right. Just no.

Although I do know a couple who accidentally met on Craigslist who are now happily married. The guy was a musician who had put out an ad for a singer, and his future wife who is classically trained in opera responded.

But still, no.

Really, really, no.

Not really amusing. Not the sort of amusing that would be fodder for a good barroom story, anyway. Just a creepy story of modern alienation and mental illness. A male acquaintance tried it a few times and all the women he found were either looking for a man to support their children or were crazy. The female friend who tried it fared worse; her first time out she wound up with an almost 40-year-old man who lied about his age and put a photo of someone else up. He started crying when she got ready to leave in order to guilt her into staying, which she did. Turned out that he lived at home, almost never went out, hated and loved his mother (who apparently had serious boundary issues and always had) never knew his father and wanted to get married. To her. He brought a ring. With him. To their first date. And proposed within 15 minutes of meeting her. She turned and left right after that. He began stalking her. A restraining order failed to deter him. Her brother and me beating him up when he showed up at her house with a knife and refused to leave, threatening to kill himself, then when it didn't cause pity, kill her, didn't deter him. He finally wound up in prison; turned out that she wasn't the only one he was after, and he beat up the other woman half to death. The mother accused him of doing the same to her, so he got more time added to his sentence. She didn't hear from him after that. Hopefully he's still there.

No.

No.

No no no.

I don't have any personal experience in this, but I don't need to have my leg cut off with a chainsaw to definitively state that's a bad idea either.

Aw, come on! Why not? What have you got to lose? other than maybe your life and your dignity?

Yeah, You still have your life left.

QFT.

I don't have any personal experience with Craigslist dating either, and the story Shem told was just crazy. I was just giving my opinion based on the personal ads I've read for amusement -- they are all so clearly crazy! Anyone who answers most of those ads is so clueless I'd say they almost deserve what they're getting, but I won't since now I have to take Shem's horrible story into consideration, and I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

It actually wound up being one of the saddest stories I've seen, and I worked at a domestic violence shelter. She was really sheltered for most of her childhood, had no idea of how to date, and this was her first attempt at finding her own boyfriend. She stopped dating after that, and married who super-controlling ultra-right father chose for her. She was miserable, wound up with four kids in five years, and was abandoned by the guy, who apparently only wanted to get married because he could get more money out of the military if he had dependents. Really, really sad.

Jesus, now I'm depressed. Human beings really suck sometimes.

That is really sad.

mediageek - I'll play advocatus diaboli for a second and say "Why the hell not?" I found my roommate that way, and going through life thinking there are psychos around every corner is no way to live. Most people are good and decent.

Free advice:

- Get to know them through a few e-mails first (exchange photos too!)
- First few dates are ALWAYS in a public place, preferably in relatively crowded areas (downtown restaurants and bars)
- Tell someone (roommate, friend, etc.) where you're going and when you'll be back. Hell, you can post it on here and I will call the cops if you don't come back at the right time.

I think CL will be decent to find a few quick dates so you can see what's out there. Give it shot!

EDIT...for Latin misstep

The problem with Craigslist dating is that it has a reputation for crazy, so sane people stay away, so the crazy/sane ratio goes up, so the reputation gets worse, so more sane people stay away ... etc. I'm sure there are genuinely nice people there, but you're going to have to sift through a whole lot of batshit chaff to find those few grains of wheat. Is the time and trouble really worth it?

I personally recommend OkCupid a lot; it seems particularly easy to flag the looneys, and I've met a lot of REALLY cool people there.

Yeah, OKCupid is good. The crazies stick out, and the quizzes attract a lot of women who might not otherwise register for a dating site.

Exactly why I teach my daughters to fight and shoot, and not pay attention to online ads.

I think Ellie has the right take. Craig's List is like the "I saw you" section of your local free alt-weekly personals, but on the internet. And free. I say read it for amusement and date elsewhere. My ex girlfriend tried some Yahoo Personals, they seemed to work out all right...although thinking back on it I probably shouldn't have bought, "I just wanted to meet some new people" when she offered it as the reason for signing up two months before she dumped my ass. Live and learn eh?

Try The Onion's personals. I went out with four people, all of whom were sane,* and I'm still with the fourth a year and a third later. As a friend put it, "at least you know they have a sense of humor." Be warned that they share a backend with Salon, so you might end up with someone who thinks Joe Conason can write English.

* By DC standards and what was evident from 1-4 dates. Women in DC bitch about the number of men while rejecting everyone who isn't a senator and imagine that men are better looking elsewhere and that they're good looking enough to get such men. They also believe everywhere else is better than here and will spend the date talking about how they can't wait to get back. In that way, Ann Coulter is a very average DC female. But some, like her, are insane beyond the preceding. You can find these on Match.com.

I know of two people who are marrying people they met through eHarmony. I guess they are at least average height and heterosexual, which seem to be the hangups of that system, but still, that isn't bad.

I often tell my wife how glad I am not to have to be trying to find someone at this stage in my life. Good luck.

EDIT: I think there may be something to the idea of Onion personals. A common sense of humor and some common level of undertstading about the world around you to 'get' many of the jokes is a non trivial thing, I think.

Seriously, I do say "why not?" to the idea of Craigslist. Just have an idea of what you might be getting into and don't set your expectations too high. Have some fun with it.

And I second the idea about the Onion. A number of people of my acquaintance have said to me that if they see someone reading the Onion, they figure that person is probably pretty smart and has a good sense of humor.

NO, NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO.

Just absolutely NO. In size 100 font and bold. Trust me. NO.

I know people who met online and wound up getting married, but not through personal ads, and certainly not through Craigslist.

If that ad was serious, that guy has been masturbating for so long that he literally wants to fuck himself. If not, the fake mustache part is genius.

The Onion personals are real? I always thought they were some sort of elaborate joke.

Again, to reiterate, Craigslist personals=NO NO NO!

I have a weird mutant ability to attract women who are less than balanced. So perhaps I should just go back to match.com?

Dude, we already told you: The Onion or OkCupid. Anything else is bat country. ;)

Yeah, Match.com is just going to net you someone desperate to get married *now* And that's if they take you at all, which they probably won't if you're not looking to get married too.

Check you out. With your one sentence summary of my last relationship.

I say go for it and if it turns out to be 100% full of crazies, there is always CollarMe.com

I will not go look, I will not go look, I will not go look, I will not go look....

collarme.com makes me *heart* America.

Not my thing, but if you're into it, by all means...

Just checked it out. Interesting message boards.

EDIT: Especially the ones with the Goreans acting all philosophical about being Goreans. It's like porn as written by Gunnels.

Have not looked at collarme---I'm still at work, but wanted to give a fourth (fifth? Xth? whatever) vote for the Onion's personals. I believe the Onion, Salon and Nerve all used the same company to run their personals ads. I used them after I got divorced, and found the filters the site provided to be worth the $20 or so it cost. I figured if my potential dates could compose rational text, and if we liked similar things, then they were doing a lot better than the average gal I was likely to meet in a bar or at the dog park. The hit/miss ratio was a lot better for me, and I ended up meeting my present girlfriend on that site. I recommend the service to all of my acquaintances whose speech usually does not [sound like] a character from "Idiocracy." [What can I say, it's late and I hate tax season...]

Craigslist, OTOH, is to be read for entertainment value only. My tolerance for novel experiences is probably a lot lower than yours though.

Love the porn written by Gunnels line. Now to purge that thought from my brain with several shots of Knob Creek...

I have heard good things about Nerve and knowing that the Onion's ads are run by the same company seems a good omen.

I've had two dates through CL.

One wasn't originally a dating thing. I met her through CL when I had to sell my Dead Can Dance tickets. She was an illegal immigrant from Peru and was totally gorgeous and fun. I ended up going on a couple of dates with her but nothing came of it.

The other girl was a interpreter for the deaf who had just moved here from San Francisco. Very intelligent and cool. We hit it right off. She was looking for someone to go see Minus The Bear with. Good show, good date. I gave her a call again a little while later but it turned out that the reason she was dating was because she had just broken up with her BF. They had gotten back together so I was s.o.l. No big deal though. I doubt we would have gotten together, but we definitely could have been friends.

It wasn't until later that I was informed how uncommon it was that I managed to meet 2 sane girls through CL. It was also a source of wonder that I had managed to get the dates with so little trouble. Usually the male\female ratio is way skewed towards the females. I haven't tried again.

Ok...still not going to look, but I kind of get a "Gorean", but what the hell is a "Gunnel" besides the side of a ship?

my favorite craigslist personal...well, there's two. i can't post the image of this one because it's nsfw but basically it was a dude looking for another dude so they could tether themselves to a metal pole outside during a tornado and jerk off. during the tornado.

the other was when i moved to where i am now in brooklyn - a friend of mine sent me an ad for a guy who posted a m4m ad at like 11 something in the morning on a tuesday saying his wife was going out for milk and could anybody host.

people are overly complicated.

I've heard good things about collarme, if you're into the scene. It's slim pickings in Knoxville, though, so I can't give you my n=1.

But seriously, dude, OkCupid. Shem has it right, the quizzes attract a lot of girls who wouldn't otherwise bother with an internet dating site, and the matching algorithm seems to work well. (David and I have been each other's top matches since we joined, so, there you go.)

My favorite Craigslist ad is a wanted ad that a guy posted seeking a working pinball machine in exchange for crushing 100 beer cans against his crotch. I posted it on grylliade a long time ago, but I'm not sure if I ever saved the ad. I'm sure the link is long since expired.

Uh . . . could one of you other guys field this question for me? I have to save this week's supply of righteous indignation for another "government's full of corrupt assholes" story.

Thanks much. Sorry for my ignorance.

You should really read the Grylliwiki before you embarrass yourself further.

I have been, but thanks. Nobody bothered to point out it's existance previously.

Matt: Sorry, that's one of our in-jokes around here. It's a thing Gunnels used to say all the time: "You should really read X before you embarrass yourself further." No offense meant! This is what you get for seemlessly integrating into the community, I forget you're new!