Dating advertisements illustrate the values of society in many ways and have therefore been transformed during the years. Even so, one very important part of the personal ad has always been the self-description. Most advertisers make an effort to present themselves in ways that make them appear as inimitable people. Therefore, the study of personal ads can give clues as to which personal attributes people idealise. This paper uses a linguistic approach in order to study the genre of dating advertisements. Different sets of attributes are studied: the central noun of the self-description, age, appearance, personality / behaviour traits, interests, career / status / solvency, ethnicity, location, and generational / marital status. The material used for this research is 200 ads from the weekly London magazine Time Out. In order to study gender differences 50 ads were picked out from each of the four following categories: straight women, straight men, gay women and gay men