Love From The Personals

Aaron became tired of always being alone, and decided to do something about it. He placed an advertisement in the Lonely Hearts column of the newspaper, and the response he got was more than he could have hoped for. Terri, his female opposite number responded and, after making love together for the first time, they both knew what had always been lacking in their lives.

~~~~~ Excerpt ~~~~~

“Single White male, tall, athletic, 35 years old, brown hair, blue eyes, Bachelor’s degree, accountant, looking for a woman, any race, 25 to 40 years old for a serious relationship,” read the first sentence in the personal advertisement that caught Terri Parker’s eye. She smiled because the man being described sounded like just the guy she was hoping to find, and had wanted to find for her entire life. She believed she had always wanted a man like him, even though she hadn’t realized it until now.

He liked dining out, and that was good because she didn’t like to cook. He liked cuddling in front of the fireplace? Well, who wouldn’t? She was glad he liked movies and really glad he liked cats. Terri liked cats too although she wasn’t allowed to have one in her apartment. “This guy sounds pretty good,” she told herself. “I hope he doesn’t turn out to be an axe murderer or something gross like that.” She didn’t need to leave for her job as a computer programmer for a while and she decided she was going to call the 900 number that was listed for a woman to call if she was responding to a profile placed by a man.

Before doing that, Terri made a list of the things she wanted to say about herself. Although quite intelligent, she thought better on paper than when there was pressure being placed on her, such as talking into a recording device. Since the man who had placed the ad was tall, she decided to stretch her own height to five feet, six inches. She was a little shorter but that was close enough. Some people, when they were being nice, called her “pleasantly plump” but she knew better. Still, she didn’t want to describe herself as being fat, so “cuddly” was the term she chose. He had said he liked cuddling so she decided that was a good word to use, and honest enough to get by. Giving her true age, 32, was no problem because it was right in the middle of his preferred range.

Dark brown hair and brown eyes were added to the list. Terri decided she would avoid mentioning her Eurasian heritage. The guy seemed to not care about ethnicity anyhow. Her Bachelor’s degree and her job were equal to his and she had no problem including them. Terri was glad he had refrained from mentioning long walks on the beach because it had always seemed to her that was a silly waste of time. She decided that, except for liking cats and movies, she wouldn’t mention any hobbies or personal preferences. For one thing, she didn’t really have any others and, for another, she would discuss them with the man as the relationship progressed, if it did, indeed, progress.