The service went out of business after it was revealed that every Friday, the dating service staff would get together for drinks and watch the videos to mock the "losers" that came in that week. posted by SPrintF at 9:02 AM on [6 favorites]

My current girlfriend I and met via Bumble, the online dating App, where she had an interesting ad that indicated she was my type personality wise, along with photos that I found attractive

My wife of 20 years and I met via a personals ad she put up in the Baltimore City Paper, back in 1996.

I read it, thought it sounded interesting, called the number in the ad and left a message, including one where i left my number. She called me, introduced herself, we talked two or three times, then decided to meet up.

I went to her house to pick her up, where her entire inner circle of family and friends were playing cards, obviously so they could physically see me, my car, and get a general read on me. We were together about 25 years, married for 20, before she passed away.

She wrote her ad with the help of good male friend of hers who helped her highlight her strong points. Interesting point is that there was no internet, so we didn't know what each other looked like physically until we actually met. However she always said when she first heard my voice on the phone message that she was going to marry me, it just a thing, you know?

Interestingly enough, a male friend also assisted her a bit, along with a few female friends. I messaged her, we chatted for a few minutes, and then decided to meet up that day for a coffee date. It was Saturday, we were both free and both believed that spending too much texting or phone talking was wasted time, it's the physical interactions that matter, hence the quick, low key meeting.

Before we got off the phone I made sure she knew my full name and number and I got hers. We Googled each other (as we later revealed), just to make sure we were real and our stories matched what we had said. We met in a very public place and talked and quickly became https://getbride.org/tr/blog/amerikali-kadinlar-vs-avrupa-kadinlari/ attached.

I rewrote my ad several times before and after posting, trying to highlight who I am and what sort of woman I wanted to attract.

I was new to dating again, so it was hard to think in those terms, but evidently managed to convey it!

Then there was the agonizing over what photos to post, then oh let me take more recent photos etc etc. posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:24 AM on [42 favorites]

In the early 90s the local weekly (Riverfront Times) had personals pages. The way I remember it working was that you'd submit an ad and they'd print it with an ID or number and you'd call a number and leave a voicemail for them. Here's some examples that were similar from the Detroit Metro Times.

I think there was a 900 number involved in leaving voicemails or something like that. There was definitely a hook where it was easy to place an ad for free but they got a cut if you were responding to people.

However it worked, yeah, you'd get on the phone and talk a little or a lot. If that went well then you'd meet somewhere and have a coffee or a date.