Blog & Series

Articles on personal ads, swipe app fatigue, and text-first dating, plus a four-part investigative series on the return of the personal ad.

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Four-Part Investigative Series
The Return of the Personal Ad
What disappeared when Craigslist shut Personals in 2018, how the format rebuilt itself across queer apps, newsletters, and newspaper holdouts, and why the mainstream press started noticing in 2024.
Part I When the Internet Lost Its Personal Ads
October 2023
 Part II They Never Really Died
April 2024
 Part III After the Swipe: Why We’re Drifting Back to Words
December 2024
 Epilogue Old Is New Again
August 2025

Editorial

Essays

Cultural and practical pieces on personal ads, dating apps, and what the current moment in dating looks like.

September 2026
The History of Personal Ads: Old Newspaper Personals, 1850 to 1950
Long before the personals moved online, Americans paid by the word to tell strangers what they wanted. What they asked for, and who they wrote to.
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Reference
The Personals Archive
138 personal ads from American, Australian, British, and Canadian newspapers, 1800 to 1954, transcribed from the original pages.
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Reference
The Personals Dictionary
What personal ad abbreviations and phrases mean, from the 1800s to now, with dates and real examples.
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Reference
Kink Roles in Personal Ads
What 90 kink roles mean in personal ads, grouped by family, with the roles each one pairs with.
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September 2026
Personal Ads in Literature: From Sherlock Holmes to Opera
Personal ads date to the 1690s, and fiction has been reading them for over a century. The agony column, a novel told in the personals, and three opera ads.
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October 2026
Alternatives to Dating Apps: Other Apps and Offline Options
Text-first personal ads, open-minded and alt apps, Reddit boards, and ways to meet offline, each described with dated facts.
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August 2026
Swipe Fatigue: The Personal Ad, Reinvented by Accident
Tinder, Bumble, and Facebook are all fighting burnout the same way: teaching daters to say what they want in words. That format has a name.
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July 2026
Dating Spreadsheets: The Personal Ad, Built Backward
Daters are tracking prospects in spreadsheets and scoring apps. The columns they build are a personal ad, reconstructed backward through fieldwork.
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July 2026
Date Me Docs: The Personal Ad, Reborn in a Google Doc
Daters are writing long-form profiles in Google Docs. Where the trend came from, why it works, and the one thing a doc can’t give you: an audience.
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June 2026
How to Write a Personal Ad, With Examples
What a personal ad is, examples old and new, and how to start: one true detail, the one thing you actually want, in your own words.
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June 2026
Personal Ad Post Stats: Views, Replies & Audience
See how your personal ad is performing: your views, messages, reply rate, and who you are reaching, by age, distance, and gender.
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June 2026
AseeksB Personals Report: Growth and Reach
Original data on how a free, text-first personals app is growing: install growth through spring 2026, and signups across 87 countries.
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Oct 2026
Craigslist Personals Alternatives, Checked and Compared
We checked the personal-ad sites people use in place of Craigslist Personals against eight traits from archived 2017 Craigslist pages, plus spam controls, redirects, and the sites we left out.
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May 2026
How to Get More Replies to Your Personal Ad
Posted and heard nothing? See whether anyone is actually viewing your ad, and how to write one that gets answered.
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October 2026
Zangi Scams: Why Someone Asks You to Move to Zangi, Telegram, or Signal
What the Zangi app is, whether it's safe, and why someone you just met asks you to move to Zangi, Telegram, or Signal. The reasoning behind one of our guidelines.
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March 2026
Personal Ads Are Back, and Everyone Is Noticing
The New York Times, Today, and New York Magazine have all covered the same story. Here’s what they found and why it makes sense.
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August 2025
Casual Encounters: Where to Post One Online
Craigslist Casual Encounters is gone. What a casual encounter is, where to post one now, and how to stay safe.
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July 2025
Missed Connections: How to Post One Online
What happened to Craigslist Missed Connections, what a missed connection is, where to post one now, and how to write one that gets found.
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March 2025
Personal Ads vs. Swipe Dating Apps: What’s the Difference?
They’re not stylistic variations on the same product. They’re fundamentally different formats with different strengths and different assumptions about how people should find each other.
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A Series

Notes from the Road
Personals, City by City
Sam is working through one city at a time, across the United States and then overseas, looking at how personals actually work in each place. Start with the introduction, then follow along city by city.
New York Where to Post Personal Ads in NYC
Updated October 2026
 Los Angeles Personal Ads for Los Angeles
Updated October 2026
 Chicago Personal Ads for Chicago
Updated October 2026
 Florida Personal Ads in Florida: Miami, Tampa, and Orlando
Updated October 2026
 Austin Personal Ads for Austin
Updated October 2026
 Houston Personal Ads in Houston
October 2026
 Dallas-Fort Worth Personal Ads in Dallas-Fort Worth
October 2026
 Las Vegas Personal Ads for Las Vegas
October 2026
 Seattle and Portland Personal Ads in Seattle and Portland
October 2026
 San Francisco Bay Area Personal Ads in San Francisco and the Bay Area
October 2026
 San Diego Personal Ads in San Diego
October 2026
 Denver Personal Ads in Denver and Colorado Springs
October 2026
 Phoenix and Tucson Personal Ads in Phoenix and Tucson
October 2026
 Boston and New England Personal Ads in Boston and New England
October 2026
 New Jersey Personal Ads in New Jersey
October 2026
 Upstate New York Personal Ads in Upstate New York
October 2026
 Pennsylvania Personal Ads in Pennsylvania
October 2026
 DC, Baltimore, Delaware Personal Ads in DC, Baltimore, and Delaware
October 2026
 Michigan Personal Ads in Detroit and Michigan
October 2026
 Missouri Personal Ads in St. Louis and Missouri
October 2026
 Kentucky Personal Ads in Louisville and Kentucky
October 2026
 Sydney Personal Ads for Sydney
Updated October 2026
 UK Personal Ads in the UK: London, Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow, and Edinburgh
Updated October 2026
 Melbourne Personal Ads for Melbourne
October 2026
 Canada Personal Ads in Canada: Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, and Edmonton
October 2026
 Australia Personal Ads in Australia: Adelaide, Perth, and Brisbane
October 2026

Community

For the Community

Personal ads for kink, ENM, and poly, and how AseeksB fits alongside the communities people already belong to.

November 2025
Kink and BDSM Dating Apps Compared
FET, Feeld, KinkD, KINK People, Kinkoo, KinkLife, Recon, and AseeksB, checked in October 2026: how each one starts a conversation, what’s free, and how couples join.
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December 2025
FetLife and AseeksB
FetLife is where much of the kink community already lives. AseeksB is the focused personals piece: post clearly, connect one to one. Use both.
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Coming From Another Site

Sites You May Have Known

If a personals site you used has shut down or stopped feeling like itself, here is what a modern version looks like.

October 2026
Anonymous Dating Apps: What Others Can See on Each App
What other people can see on AseeksB, Bumble, Feeld, Pure, Reddit, and Tinder, why no app makes you invisible, and how to stay anonymous on any app.
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October 2026
What Is R4R? Reddit Personals Explained and Compared
What R4R means, how Reddit’s personals boards work, the rules on r/r4r, r/dirtyr4r, and r/BDSMpersonals, and how AseeksB compares.
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October 2026
Sites Like Locanto for Personal Ads
What we found on Locanto's Personals section in October 2026, and the other personal-ad sites people use instead.
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August 2026
Apps Like FET: A Text-First Alternative
Seeing ads for a kink dating app everywhere? How to check what is real before you download, and why text-first gives you more to go on.
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July 2026
Sites Like Sniffies
Grindr, SCRUFF, Jack’d, Hornet, ROMEO, Recon, Chunkr, Squirt, Adam4Adam, and AseeksB, checked in October 2026: how you find people, what’s free, and how each shows your location.
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July 2026
Apps Like Nymph: A Text-First Alternative
Vetting a new open-minded dating app? What to check before you download, and why text-first personal ads give you more to go on.
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May 2025
Sites Like Doublelist
The personal ad, rebuilt: text-first, mobile, moderated, and free to start on iOS and Android.
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June 2025
What Happened to Backpage
From the 2018 seizure to the sentences, what backpage.com is now, and what’s on record about the sites using its name, checked in October 2026.
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October 2026
Facebook Dating: How It Works
Who can use Facebook Dating, what it costs, how likes and messages work, and why it may not show up, checked against Meta’s help pages in October 2026, plus how a personal ad differs.
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July 2025
Apps Like Feeld
Feeld and eight apps people compare it with, checked in October 2026: how each one starts a conversation, how couples can join, and what it costs to message.
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October 2026
Swinger Apps and Sites Compared
SDC, SLS (now Swing.com), Kasidie, SwingTowns, Quiver, 3Fun, Feeld, #open, and 3rder, checked in October 2026: who each is built for, how couples join, and what membership costs.
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Text-first personal ads in your own words. All key features are free.

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