Off topic to the Askme but I know two couples who met via the Boston Phoenix personal ad section – one of the couples had their ad framed and hung it in their guest bathroom.

A GLOBALLY SEASONED EARLY 70S SoCal media artist, financially stable with abundant Weltschmerz, seeks to meet an erudite, genial, and independent woman 60–75 who remains curious about the wonders that life still holds. My pronouns are ars gratia artis. Let’s brezilyalД± gelin be pen pals starting with a short Bio and see, as photographers would say “what develops.”

My now-husband and I met via a personal ad that I placed in the local alternative newspaper. I had read the ads of women in my age range and wrote one that was designed to stand out and give as much info about my personality in a very short written description.

Placing an ad with the newspaper was free, but leaving voicemail to respond to an ad was not. There was also some sort of system where I recorded answers to questions about my age, interests, etc over the phone, and people could somehow browse those responses without reading the ad. It was very clear from the responses I got which men had read the ad (which was pretty specific) and which had only listened to my recordings (which were quite a bit more vague; the whole voice-being-recorded aspect made me uncomfortable and I just tried to get through it as quickly as possible.)

I led a charmed life in this system. I placed one ad, and the third (and fourth, I’ll get to that a litle later) voicemail was from my now-husband.

There used to be a video dating service in my city

So I listened to the first two voicemails, who were clearly people responding to my recordings, and felt a lot like, “Hello, I am looking to date a woman in your age range, and you sound unobjectionable, so maybe call me back?”

I’m glad the technology for online dating has advanced these days; I assume that this sort of thing wouldn’t happen on modern dating apps

The third voicemail was from someone who clearly had read my ad and liked it a lot. He talked a bit about shared interests. The flow of the voicemail was a little odd, but he sounded like a very nice man–and then the voicemail ended without him giving me his phone number or email or last name. All I had was a first name, and I didn’t know any way to contact him through the ad system.

The fourth voicemail was him again; he explained that he’d done the “record answers to questions on the phone” route, and it had felt weird, so he just wanted to say his piece on his own. Luckily for us both, this time he left his phone number. We talked on the phone for about a week, then met in person and just really, really liked each other right from the start.

In about a week it will have been 26 years since we first met. I’ve spent more than half my life with him, and can’t imagine how different my life would have been if he hadn’t left that second voicemail. posted by creepygirl at AM on [3 favorites]

You went down there, filled out a form and recorded a short video of introduction. Then you got to view videos recorded by others and make your selection.

I probably went on 10 dates that way. Didn’t find my soulmate. Learned not to book a whole day type date. I suffered through a couple activities at the St. Louis Art Museum and dinner dates that could’ve been a coffee date.

Personal ads didn’t even need to have a post office box number. One pathetic advertisement was worded, “Mother, come home. All is forgiven.” They were used to track down missing people so often that in Britain they were known as the agony column. “Will anyone knowing the recent whereabouts of Mr. James Selkirk, aged 56 or thereabouts, please get in touch with PO Box. “

Having found an ad to respond to, I think you would phone an “0898″ phone number – which cost quite a bit per minute – and listen to a message the advertiser had left. You’d then leave them a message (and, for me, keep having to re-record it until it wasn’t too embarrassing). I guess you’d leave your phone number and hope they called back.

We passed the photos round the office a couple of times, then added a note offering our regards to everyone involved, resealed the envelope and took it down to the kiosk to be forwarded on. posted by Paul Slade at 3:48 PM on [2 favorites]