"SWf 38 sks SM35-59 for LTR. Be n/s, fit,d/d-free, urb dwell, no kids"
If this makes no sense to you, you haven't made the plunge into (im)personal dating services. This book seeks to tell of the difficult and often harsh world of those who dwell in the personals columns, but ultimately it doesn't really do justice to its aims.
In a self-styled autobiography, Michael Beaumier takes an all-too-brief look at the characters he meets in his job as a personals column editor in small town America. In his view, "A personal ad, like an obituary, happens when all else fails and you have nothing to lose", showing his jaded outlook on those who come across his path seeking true love.
This could have been a really good book, a sharp and incisive comment on the dilemmas and ultimately soul destroying nature of modern society where "traditional family' has become a casualty of postmodernism. But it misses the mark as the author is too deeply enmeshed in the morass of the world of the personals to be able to step outside it.
The caricatures of those Michael comes across in his working life are too sketchy and patchy to enable the reader outside to examine or understand in any real way the motivations and circumstances of those who feel the need to place an ad in the personals.
From the outright outrageous, to the quietly sad, the all too brief character outlines are sandwiched in between self-indulgent monologues of his own dysfunctional life with his Jewish partner, referred to as "the boyfriend".
There is superficial discussion of the lifestyle of a merely observant Jew, but the book does not engage with what Judaism, or even Christianity, has to say about the whole modern dating issue.
Ultimately the book slides into a long winded recitation of the foibles of Michael's personal life and his gay lifestyle. It could have been redeemed by quality writing, but the book is lacking in any real literary merit.
However, the emptiness of the lifestyles and quiet desperation of the characters, including Michael's own visceral existence, bear mute witness to the fact that while Christianity is not an easy road, it certainly has a fulfillment and contentment that outclasses the smorgasbord of lifestyles related in this book.
A second unwitting witness the book could bear is if you've got a friend caught up in the modern dating scene. The book may be a good springboard into some detailed discussions about the fact that the only truly lasting and fulfilling relationships are those that are ultimately based on a lifelong relationship with God. This is most definitely not the case for those tangled yet temporary encounters based solely on the shallow happenstance that both you and they are 38YY, GL, prof, n/s, s/d, GSOH no kids NOR.
