Finding Love in the Pennysaver

I remember when they used to have personal ads in there. Someone seeks someone else. European. Mediterranean. Muscular build. For playtime. Loves fast cars. I always wondered what the people actually looked like. It was in the days before the false honesty of internet dating, I can tell you that. In the days before the Craigslist rape fantasy. I wondered how we were supposed to fully appreciate each other when we were shorthand paragraphs. N/S/Drugs. A/s/l? But that came later.

I wondered about who was truly lucky enough to find this love there. In tiny, centimeter-by-centimeter squares. How hungrily pored over were they? What happened when they actually met? Did they last? Were the people crazy? The woman or man who wondered "Were you waiting for me"... Was it the same kind of bottom-feeder we are used to nowadays? What of judgment? What of sex? Did anything go? Does our love become the same kissed-away time capsule pieces of paper, biodegrading into the earth years later? What happened to all those ads I myself cut out, fascinated, laughing, childish, completely enamored of the stories, possibilities, Adonises and romance novel heroines that we could imagine with a few abbreviations?

You can't find love in the Pennysaver anymore. Today when I pick it up it is a shard of an artifact. You can find old prom gowns and music lessons and carpeting services and people trying for their American citizenship who will do the best damn job putting in your roofing that you can imagine. But you can't find love like that anymore. I'm sorry. I'm too in love with my phone to talk to you. Love is just this quick these days. Maybe we were looking in the wrong place.

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