The personals section has been around for decades, and putting

it online does little to change what is basically an encyclopedia of sexual

and emotional desire. That some people try to find the most intimate

relationships in the mediated form of personals is understandable; that

web sites have chosen so flawed a model upon which to connect their

users, less so.

The problem is twofold. What's most easily expressed in a personal ad are

the the details that fall away in real interaction: taste in music, appearance as

captured in a bathroom mirror with a camera phone, online wit. What's hardest

to admit to is the motivation behind said self-description. There is a heavy

but often tacit note of desperation in every CraigsList personal ad, and that

is communicable -- the form itself betrays that the very cute, very smart teenager

is also very lonely.

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