Home >  Lifestyle >  Columnists

Wednesday, February 06, 2002

With the always unfortunate approach of Valentine's Day and the barely explicable increase in attention paid to the personal ads, I'm sometimes asked to provide the entire key to the sometimes cryptic abbreviations and codes therein, as we don't always have the space to publish much beyond the abridged list.

As if the whole relationship thing isn't depressing enough, you can imagine the frustration of someone who has to decipher something like:

Attractive, sophisticated, successful, intelligent, honest, sincere, energetic, self-deprecating SWPW N/D seeks big, stupid, insanely outgoing S/DWPM N/S for cuddling until I can negatively impact his financial independence.

In this example, an amazingly self-satisfied single white professional woman who is a nondrinker (SWPW N/D) is looking for, it appears, my Uncle Bobby, a single or divorced (who really knows?) white professional male who is a nonsmoker and has the first nickel he ever earned nailed to his forehead. According to the key on the personals page, A stands for Asian, B for black, C for Christian, D is divorced, F is female, H is Hispanic, J is Jewish, M is male, N/S is nonsmoker, S is single, and W is white. And while all of that's true, other letters keep popping up, like G.

GWM is gay white male, OGM is openly gay male, JGM is joyously gay male, and IMGLLO is I mean gay like Liberace, OK? It turns out every letter of the alphabet means something. E is Ethiopian, I is Irish, K is Klansman. L is Lebanese, N is Native American, O is octogenarian. Q is code for "quick, I can't pay for another ad," R is Russian, S is Slovak, T is Transylvanian, U is Ukrainian, V is Vermonter, W is wicked, just wicked, X is dyslexic, Y is Yugoslavian, and Z is, of course, Zorro.

The people who buy ads on the Post-Gazette's relatively tame "Connections" page are supposed to be seeking LTMRs, or long-term monogamous relationships, with the option of turning it into an LTPR (long-term polygamous relationship) or the more standard LTTR (long-term torturous relationship) perhaps implied. LTRs are listed as desired throughout, but just in case they pop up, STR is short-term relationship, OR is overnight relationship, MRSR is men's room stall relationship, and FSOYTR is front seat of your Toyota relationship.

As to the various slashes, N/S (nonsmoker) and N/D (nondrinker) have been covered, but watch out for N/T (non-thinker), N/DD (non-drunk driver), DD/HOF (member, Drunk Driver Hall of Fame) N/SCR (non-scratcher) N/SCR WBW (non-scratcher but will break wind), NL/RMC (no longer a renowned methamphetamine cook) and the always cryptic N/Drugs, which means either that the advertiser doesn't want a companion who uses drugs, or doesn't have any drugs himself, at least temporarily.

Additional slashes sometimes turn up between an advertiser's hair and eye color (blond/blue or auburn/hazel), so beware of things like white/red and blue/cold black demonic. H/W proportionate means a person's height is somehow correct for his or her weight, which is hardly comforting, but superior to something like H/W inverted, one would suppose.

P is code for professional, UP is unprofessional, EUP is extremely unprofessional, and the occasional CKAJ is, simply, can't keep a job.

A quick inspection of a recent raft of personals indicates that the things people long for in a companion, Valentine's Day or not, have not changed much. There will always be entries like:

Amazingly humorless DBF seeks employed, down-to-earth D/SBM with a great sense of humor so he can explain to me what all the damn laughing is about. "Down to earth" is a highly desirable trait in men, it appears, as the personals is no place for astronauts or guys who are, you know, just slightly levitated. Similarly, women often end their personal ad with the words, "no games." Apparently, boys, that Parcheesi board you're walking around with isn't the babe magnet you'd hoped it would be. Some women, additionally, continue to seek a SWM "who is sure of who he is." This is common among women who had no luck with the H/W proportionate Ukrainian amnesiac who said he likes, "sunsets, hiking, spontaneous weekend getaways, and quiet evenings by the fire" but turned out to be an arsonist who couldn't sit still.

I noticed last week a woman looking for a man who "places Jesus first," and felt bad for the thousands of down-to-earth guys with great senses of humor who like long walks and fine dining, but still place Jesus third, behind Sir Isaac Newton and Jack Lambert.

Gene Collier's e-mail address is gcollier@post-gazette.com