HARVARD MAGAZINE Only the lonely and elite

The ads tout those who write books, not just read them. And woe is you if you don't look good enough.
By LARRY WILLIAMS
HARTFORD COURANT
If you're going to place a personal ad in Harvard Magazine, you'd better be into something besides movies and long walks on the beach.
And don't say you're a construction worker or try out new euphemisms for fat.
If the personals in the alumni magazine's March-April issue are any indication, lonely singles with Ivy League credentials are looking for more in a mate -- much more.
Consider the likely expectations of this woman, looking for a man to "spend some extended time in Southern France." Of herself, she writes: "Appreciates a Margaux or a smooth, easygoing Chianti. Enjoys Bellini's 'Norma', Maillol, Provence, Italian villages, skiing, sailing. Known for a stellar coq au vin."
And, by the way, she's "adorably attractive," with "gorgeous chestnut hair" and a "petite trim figure." If you can't picture her, it will just have to do.
Others help you along by comparing themselves to movie stars. In this issue, there are look-alikes of Charlton Heston, Russell Crowe, Jacqueline Bisset, Katharine Hepburn, Julia Roberts and Blythe Danner.
What? No Andre the Giant?
There don't seem to be many bartenders or ironworkers trying their luck in these personals. But there's an "Ivy-educated lawyer turned business owner"; a "Renaissance Man, 55" who "left Harvard to conquer the business world, which he's done, triumphantly"; a retired Harvard Ph.D. in German; a man "living on the coast of Maine, now writing potboiler novels"; and a "N.Y. real estate novelist," whatever that is.
Not the common
In Harvard Magazine, you don't just get people who read novels, you get people who write them. You don't get mere movie fans, you get a "published film scholar."
Then there's the "alluringly attractive, slender, savvy photographer -- completing book." She wants you to know she doesn't put on airs: "Equally comfortable at Ritz or favorite neighborhood Italian dive, opera or Red Sox games, Arizona Biltmore or Italian pensione. ..." Yep, we can all relate to those choices. Wonder if she's Italian.
Some advertisers, realizing you can tell a lot about people by their magazine subscriptions, mention that they read The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The Economist, Easyriders. (Just kidding about that last one.)
Web sites
Also advertising among the Harvard Magazine personals are two matchmaking Web sites that don't accept just anybody.
They assess your suitability by the college you graduated from (and they don't take your word for it, either).
Rightstuffdating.com's list of acceptable schools includes the Ivies and about 30 more, including Wesleyan, Duke, Stanford, Emory and Rice.
Goodgenes.com, though its name suggests an emphasis on good breeding, is actually less selective, accepting graduates of many colleges deemed unworthy by Rightstuffdating.com.
Trinity makes Goodgenes.com's list, as do Boston College, Villanova, Notre Dame, South Florida and other schools you don't have to be a legacy to attend.