#feeldapp

Buried in the classifieds section in the back of a newspaper or magazine, personal ads were where readers flocked to see who was asking for what. If you were a lonely queer in the 1970s looking for love—or friendship, or sex, or something else entirely—the personals were a place for you. From booty calls to marriage proposals, the personals paved the way for love to transcend the boundaries of convention and, eventually, enter another dimension: the internet. Much like dating app profiles today, personal ads followed a formula, listing details like menu items: age, gender, hobbies, features, etcetera. Abbreviations like “NSA” (no strings attached), “GBM” (gay Black male), “D” (divorced), and “ALA” (all letters answered) made up a coded language of letters. It wasn’t necessarily secret–anyone familiar with classifieds would be able to decipher the acronyms–but it was discrete, and concise.

Feeld Social NYC @ The Standard Biergarten Photos by Mario Ruben