Let's Get Personal ...

So, how many people use or have used an online personals site?

How many of you have perused some of these sites just to see what they’re all about?

How many of you have ever looked at an online personals site and seen someone you know on there?

Sometimes when I get bored (and I bore easily) I actually like to look around on personals sites and see if there is anyone I know there. It may seem weird, and it might just be a consequence of living in a small town, but I have actually seen a number personal ads from people that I knew on different personals sites. I never responded to any of them, although I was tempted to a couple of times.

I do admit that I have put up some personal ads of my own a few times and have even met some people from those sites on a few occasions. Nobody I’m still in contact with though.

But, back to the subject of this post. Seeing people you know on a personals sites. I remember back in the day, when Yahoo first started up their personals, and they were free, I was living in Fayetteville and I decided to look through the personals for over here in Redneckville. To my surprise I saw two women I knew. They were both parents of girls I went to high school with. And one of them was married!

There have been a few other times when I’ve seen someone from back in high school had posted and a few times when I’ve seen ads from coworkers. And I’ve even seen a couple of ads from neighbors of mine.

In fact, one time I had put up a profile on some social networking site that was also a kind of matchmaking site. Not sure why I did it other to just have something to do. Anyway, it was one of those sites that I totally forgot about almost immediately. Then all of the sudden one day I got an email notification that I had a message on that site. After I had them email me my password, which I forgotten, I signed on to find out that the message was just a “Hello” from my 19 year old next door neighbor. That was a little weird. But, cool cause she’s a nice girl.

Anyway, not too long ago I was looking around on some site …. could have been Plenty of Fish … and I was just looking at some of the profiles just to see who was on there. The very next day I was walking out to my car and a neighbor who lives on the other side of my building was heading to her car. She stopped and said hello and then starting talking to me about something and I chit-chatted with her for a minute or two and then we went on our way. Just as I got into my car it suddenly hit me that I had just seen her personal ad on Plenty of Fish the night before!

What reminded me of all this is that this same thing has happened to me again. Just the other day I was wasting time, this time on yahoo personals, just seeing who all was on there and whatever right? Well yesterday I walk into a convenience store and the girl behind the counter was a chick who had a personal ad that I had seen on Yahoo just a couple of days earlier!

Don’t you think this is weird? I keep seeing people I know on personals sites. Or I run into people who’s personal ads I have just seen. It kind of creeps me out in a way.

And I really don’t know what I should do when I see them. Should I tell them that I just saw their personal ad? Should I say something like “Hey! I just saw your personal ad on the internet! You’re seriously desperate! Call me?”

I guess that really wouldn’t be a good idea at all. It might even embarrass them.

But, since this keeps happening to me, I’m definitely not going to risk it by putting up some personal ad of my own! I don’t want people I know calling me or sending me emails saying “Hey, I just saw your personal ad. You’re a loser!” or something like that.