Personals Work!
Harvard Personals Just Can't Be Matched
By Peter Carlson Washington Post Staff Writer
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Attention, men! Are you looking for women? Are you looking for beautiful women? Are you looking for beautiful, intelligent, graceful, sensuous single women who have "Grace Kelly-type looks" or "Michelle Pfeiffer-type good looks" or the "high cheekbones of Lady Di" or the "high cheekbones of Renee Russo" or the "stunning passionate eyes of Renee Russo"? Well, I know where you can find these women. At Harvard. |
photo by C.J. Gunther for the Washington Post |
To be specific, you can find them in the personal ads of Harvard Magazine, the official alumni publication of Harvard University.
For those unfamiliar with Harvard, it is a medium-size Massachusetts school located across the Charles River from Boston University. It's the place that gave America Timothy Leary, Henry Kissenger and the Unabomber. I didn't attend Harvard so I'd never seen its alumni mag until a colleague handed me three issues.
"Check out the personal ads," she said. "You won't believe it."...
It's hard to beat the ads in Outlaw Biker, but I picked up Harvard and gave it a look. Within minutes, I was stunned, amazed, transfixed. The women of every red-blooded man's dreams were advertising their availability:
"Grace Kelly type looks with a dash of down to earth girl next door. Stunning blonde with athletic fresh appeal. Leggy and model slim."...
..."Head-turning good looks evocative of Diana Rigg from 'The Avengers'"...
..."A cross between Susan Sarandon and Donna from 'Mind of the Married Man'...Personalble, articulate,, sits on non-profit boards."...
... "Graceful Geena Davis type. Sensual, slender, smart, tall strikingly pretty."...
...My first thought was: Why the heck didn't I apply to Harvard? My second thought was: Welll, never mind what my second thought was....
...Fortunately, many ads provided phone numbers. I took a few deep breaths to calm my racing heart and I called a few. I got answering machines. I left my number.
Five minutes later, I got a call from Jane Lederman, 44, a divorced Boston business manager whose ad touted the "high cheekbones of Renee Russo plus personality of the young Katharine Hepburn."
She didn't write the ad, she said. It was ghostwritten by Susan Fox, founder of Personals Work, a professional personal ad ghostwriting service in Boston.
"She interviews you and gives you homework assignments," Lederman said. "She asks you to name an actress you identify with. And you have an assignment to ask your friends, 'If you were to think of me as a celebrity, who would you think of?'"
It was that process that inspired Fox's lyrical ode to Russo's cheekbones and Hepburn's personality....
Lederman got about 20 responses to her ad and met some interesting men, although none proved to be Mr. Right. A Smith grad, she learned a lot about Harvard men: "A classic Harvard MBA type is sort of focused and there's not a lot of human element to it."
But not all responders were Harvard Men: "A lot of people say they saw it in their dentist's office," she says.
As soon as I hung up with Lederman, the phone rang. It was "Head-turning good looks evocative of Diana Rigg." She was willing to talk but not to be identified by name. Her ad, too, was ghostwritten by Susan Fox. In fact, she said, it was Fox who came up with the Diana Rigg line.
...I called Fox....A former freelance writer, she has been a full-time personals ghostwriter for 11 years...She has "hundreds" of clients, 75 percent of them female. She places ads in many mags but Harvard is a favorite.
"It really does have a niche--well-educated, professional and successful people," she said. "Harvard Magazine has been very good for our clients."
How many ads in the current issue were ghosted by her?
"A bunch of them," she said.
..."It is after all, advertising, and people have to put their best foot forward," she says. "If you say you've got a botox appointment and a screwed-up 17-year-old kid in addition to being bright and fun, it doesn't work."