by Julie Ferris
There was a time in our recent history when marriage was
first and foremost an enterprise that joined families and protected their
lineage. Holy unions positioned oneself in society. And, of course, another reason
to connect one’s life to another in a legally binding way has always been
present: Money.
Yet, for most of us, we may engage in coupledom, partnership
and even marriage for another wholly impractical and fantastical set of reasons—love
and companionship.
But shifting our cultural standards of how to meet and
marry, how to date and how to find that other half, has been slow. For more
than 300 years, personal ads have been a tool to connect, and for nearly as
many years, they’ve had their critics.
From Lonely to
Looking
Noga Arikha’s essay, “Swiping right in the 1700s: The Evolution of Personal Ads” reminds us that the first personal ad published, by one
Helen Morrison in 1727, landed its author in an asylum for a month as a result
of this shockingly autonomous practice our culture wasn’t ready for.
Arikha adds that “the values that had sustained the
inherited rules of matrimony were changing during the late eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries…ideals associated with romantic love were taking center
stage at a time when Romantic reactions to a rationalized, industrializing
world emphasized the individual, lonely soul,” (2009).
We were seeking companions because we were just plain
lonely.
And despite whatever changes have happened to the technology
of personal ads, from phoning in a print order to the profile picture-driven
profiles of today’s “must love dogs” online matchmaking services, one thing
remains true. Anonymity is the key.
The People Behind the
Pen
The requisite intimate qualities and fantasies can be
publicly shared and assessed only because they represent a person we have not
yet met, who we do not know live and in the flesh. This concept isn’t new to
popular culture, either. The Shop Around
the Corner, later modernized as You’ve
Got Mail, features a lead couple who know one another in
person—frustrations and all—and then both rely on a personal ad-style
connection where they write letters or chat, not realizing until the end that
the poets at the end of the pen, saying all the right things, are indeed the
same shopkeeper and businessman who are friendly foes in everyday life.
The safety included in anonymity has carried through all 300
years of personal advertising. From the ability to ignore all responses delivered
to your post box to never swiping right, for the tiny sum of a few personal
details, you purchase the right to remain safely behind your ad, unexposed in
your choice-making.
Anonymity is the thesis and catharsis of Rupert Holmes’ 1979 hit, often called “The Piña Colada Song” (actually named “Escape”).
A bored, lonely husband sings about his dissatisfaction in his partner and how he searched newspaper personal ads to see what his options were. The woman who wrote about the now famous piña coladas piques his interest and he responds. When the pair finally meet, both are shocked to see the other standing before them.
A form of confession, this sharing of secrets allows the
writer to embody a person they hope to be, to showcase those qualities they
want cherished and hope the perfect other is one drawn to these quirks. If your
confession that you lick the microwave popcorn bag, don’t like ice cream or
only read entertainment magazines and nothing more and someone responds, your
match is made.
You’re Not Alone
The validation available to you when someone responds to
these bold presentations of what’s “wrong” with you by cultural standards
provides a kind of love. It provides forgiveness and verifies you can still fit
in the social order. Your strange habit that, by all cultural measures is
“different,” becomes sanctioned when another hears about it and continues to
move forward, treating you as a regular member of society and importantly,
telling you you’re not alone.
Pew Market Research says more than one third of those using
online dating sites haven’t ever actually gone on a date with someone they met
there. One third of personal ad or app users are engaging each other without
even meeting because the gesture of having someone respond to self you’ve shared
in and of itself is a connection.
300 Years and Going
Strong
Today, the industry has exponentially amplified its
profitability with online advertising and matchmaking services. There is, of
course, an app for that. In fact, of the $2.9 billion dating industry, 70% of
this annual profit is derived from online dating sites.
But personal ads were always profitable. Framed often as
“classified” and purchased through the sales group of papers and magazines,
advertisers paid for the privilege of creating a profile. Originally, publishers
would offer a reply program: As readers responded to your ad, the paper would
collect the mailed-in responses and deliver them to you, often weekly. Publishers
soon began leveraging premium-rate telephone numbers to entice writers to
publish their ad for free, but those replying via phone call must pay the
premium rate. Newspapers charge by the character — a throwback to old typeset
processes — and therefore, abbreviation and acronym became their own economy of
love. Researchers note how this industry jargon has moved forward into today’s
online dating as well.
The Lonely Hearts
Club Cast of THE FEW
In THE FEW,
personals remain the profitable choice for such a small publication. But, true
to the history of personal ads, the play embraces the lonely over-the-road
truck driver. This is one of many landmarks in the practice’s evolution. In the
early 1900s, personal ads saw a resurgence as Western farmers wrote to solicit
love and practical assistance. From housekeepers to wife material, this
isolated group leveraged personal ads to improve their situation. A different
sort of request—pen pals—became the hallmark of World War II soldiers using the
same mechanism to connect with others.
So, when we enter the publishing office of THE FEW, we immediately see instant and
obvious hallmarks of the personal ad. A need for capital, flexing the economy
of the paid service, is keeping the paper afloat. On the edge of a potential
millennium breakdown, the 1999 setting also prompts an uptick in ad sales,
further demonstrating that finding love, or, as some advertisers suggest in
their ads, just companionship, is more essential now than ever.
The lonely, secluded setting of northern Idaho and the
desolate profession of traveling the country alone in a big rig embody the more
recent history of the practice.
When we meet the characters, we also see remnants of other
popular plays on the anonymous ad. The man in the letters becomes someone not
only validated by your response, but he becomes larger than life, more ideal
than the man standing before you. On paper, he’s piña coladas and getting drunk
in the rain.
THE FEW gives us
another insight, however, and presents an important counterpoint to my case.
If anonymity is the key to personal ads working, what we
learn from Hunter’s characters is that it’s their desperation to no longer be
anonymous that drives them. All lonely, all looking for connection, those who
manage the personal ads may be the most in need of validation and
acknowledgement. They are the most in need of relationships with another.
In fact, THE FEW becomes a case study in how those who enable the search for connection through
this time-tested model come to quickly realize they, too, are also looking. For
validation. For companionship. For love.
