Personals training

January, 2005

Let an expert craft your ad to make you more appealing.

If you're looking for love online, you're likely seeking someone fun, adventurous, honest and caring. But using those words in your personal ad can be the kiss of death.

"You want to stay away from the overused adjectives," says Jesse Keller, who launched PersonalsTrainer.com in 2003 to help lonely hearts put their best prose forward. "The same vague words get used in 80% of all personals." The site's team of trainers tune up ads or write them from scratch. Prices range from $24.95 to $299.95.

Whether you're placing your ad on smokefreesingles.com, eharmony.com or lovemelovemypets.com, chances are you could use some expertise. So I decided to see what a trainer could do for me.

After signing up, I completed a questionnaire covering my interests, personality and the type of person I hoped to meet. The catch: For each descriptive word, I had to provide anecdotes. Writing "active" didn't cut it, so I added that I work out with a punching bag and like to hike with my beagle. Then trainer Ron Geraci interviewed me for a half-hour. Within a week, he whipped up a cleverly written, detailed profile I can plug into most dating sites.

PersonalsTrainer doesn't guarantee true love, but they follow up to see how you are faring, making revisions if necessary.

-- Melanie D.G. Kaplan