18 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY FEBRUARY 13-19, 2025 www.montereycountynow.com Before there were dating apps, there were personal ads. How one couple found an old-fashioned love connection in the pages of the Weekly. By Pam Marino Personal Story Jove & Dating SUMMER FUN Cute, funky, SWF, 32, blonde/blue, N/S, N/D, seeks exciting summer fun. Kids a plus. Locals only. You must be honest, intelligent, and financially secure. Lisa Love’s personal ad appeared in what was then the Coast Weekly on June 17, 1999, in hopes of finding a connection that had been eluding her for some time. Her quest through the classified ads was part of a very long tradition—the first personal ad reportedly ran in a British publication in 1695. “I wanted a boyfriend,” Love says. “So I did a thing, I went crazy and put an ad in the Coast Weekly.” (The paper was renamed Monterey County Weekly in 2004.) Up until that point she read the personal ads for entertainment and to see what sort of “weirdos” would use ads to meet people. But after a year-anda-half of no luck finding someone, she placed her own ad. (She used acronyms in her ad popular at the time: “SWF,” single white female; “N/S” and “N/D,” non-smoking and no drugs.) She remembers with a laugh how the ad was supposed to read: “Cute, spunky SWF…” When the ad appeared it said “funky.” “Now it sounds like I don’t shave my armpits,” Love remembers thinking. “Maybe that was what the attraction was,” says her husband Dan Bellone, sitting in an easy chair across from Personal ads routinely took up a full page or more in the Monterey County Weekly (and many other alt weeklies around the country) in the 1990s. Personal ads routinely took up a full page or more in the Monterey County Weekly (and many other alt weeklies around the country) in the 1990s.
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