I am appalled that you would print my ad verbatim in your article, [“Between The Lines,” Issue 136] without my permission, in order to degrade it. You have projected a scenario onto my ad that wasn’t there at all. What you have done to me is cruel and inhuman. I have lost respect for you and your magazine. I feel as though I’ve had my soul raped.
I wondered why you singled out my ad when you had recently run personals for “Vegetarians who are still seeking that special someone.” You mean it’s OK to meet someone through an organization but it’s not OK to meet someone individually?
Your article about my ad is an article about you — except that you don’t seem to have any insight into that fact. I personally do not feel lonely or separated from myself. I do not feel like a car. I never said that a heart of gold was something you were or were not born with, as you wrote in your article. This is all your projection.
Why do you assume that going to the South Seas is avoiding responsibility? There are gardens to weed there, too. But I was speaking symbolically, which you seemed to have missed entirely. I was referring to a type of relationship in which you create home and hearth (as in baking bread) and in which you also explore the outer world (as in the South Seas). Have you ever read any poetry?
Furthermore, I have a right to a slim man. It’s my decision, my life. I am not planning to take on the whole baseball team or the army. I was only advertising for one person and I don’t need to accommodate everyone’s feelings. If someone doesn’t fit the description, I would hope he wouldn’t take it personally.
Why do you say my ad is a “clumsy expression of genuine feeling?” What is clumsy about it? I stated exactly what I need and want. It seems pretty direct to me.
I do not feel incomplete, nor do I seek completion through another person. This is your stuff again. Wanting a mate and companion does not imply that you are incomplete without it.
When you speak of lying about love, speak for yourself. You have no way of knowing how I would relate to the people I would have met through the ad. Don’t use me and my ad to talk about yourself. My fantasy is not an attempt to compensate for the ways in which I’ve been wounded. Where do you get these ideas?
P.S. In addition to printing my letter, I hope you will print a public apology to me. Also, I would like to have forwarded to me any responses from people who wish to correspond with me in regard to this ad.
Name Withheld
Your editorial condemning personal ads as a “foolish attempt to present oneself as flawless” is both flawed and foolish. Readers of The Sun share common philosophical, social and literary interests. Why shouldn’t they be permitted the chance to meet?
And, come to think of it, just what is so bad about describing yourself as if you were a car? An ad I placed read: “Guy: Classic 1956 model. White, previous owner, body in great shape but interior could use some care. Looking for complimentary female model of same vintage, domestic or foreign, color unimportant.”
That was four years ago, and the relationship formed as a result of the ad is still running strong.
T. Postol
Port Jefferson Station, New York
The Sun responds:
While I don’t regret what I wrote, I’m sorry my words hurt you. I didn’t use your name, since I didn’t wish to embarrass you publicly. Nor did I mean to diminish you in any way privately. In expressing my ambivalence about personals, and about your ad in particular, I wanted to convey a mood of poignancy, not ridicule. If I judged you, it was by the same standards I use to judge everyone, including myself. When it comes to love, I judge us all a little foolish and more than a little wounded.
The Vege-Dates ad also bothered me, but not enough to make me turn it down. I’d welcome comment on whether there is an appropriate way — in a magazine devoted to the human heart — for readers to reach out to one another for companionship and love.
