This 1865 Ad of an 18-Year-Old Man Looking for a Wife Is Hilarious!

In 2017, Max Roser, a researcher for the University of Oxford, shared a snippet of a dating ad published in a newspaper in 1865. The ad, titled “CHANCE FOR A SPINSTER,” featured a young man touting his best traits in the hopes that he would find a wife.

And this young lad really had it all going for him. He’s patriotic (he believes in the Star Spangled Banner!), he’s well-off (he has nine sheep, a bull, and 2 heifers), he wants to buy you a hoop skirt, and he even has a good set of teeth! Your Tinder date could never.

Here is the endearing transcript in full:

“I am eighteen years old, have a good set of teeth, and believe in Andy Johnson, the star-spangled banner, and the 4th of July. I have taken up a State lot, cleared up eighteen acres last year, and seeded ten of it down.

My buckwheat looks first rate, and the oats and potatoes are bully. I have got nine sheep, a two-year-old bull, and two heifers, besides a house and a barn.

I want to get married. I want to buy bread-and-butter, hoop-skirts, and waterfalls for some person of the female persuasion during life. That’s what’s the matter with me. But I don’t know how to do it.”

We’ll never know if this young man found the love of his life, but we have to applaud his effort… and at the very least his buckwheat.

(via INSIDER)