is for Mr. Right.  In the late 1960s and early 1970s, a new character emerges in gay personal ads, Mr. Right . . .  As gay liberation widened the pool of our potential partners, we became more and more fastidious and harder to please until personal ads were transformed from open-ended cattle calls (as in ads that read "DESPERATE!," "Help!," and "lonely male!") into quixotic quests for the ideal partner, the one-in-a-million man who can satisfy our stringent new requirements for sexual and emotional compatibility.  A fairy-tale notion of fate lies behind many contemporary gay personal ads, which are haunted by the illusory figure of Prince Charming, by a knight in shining armor who will sweep us off our feet, thereby fulfilling the romantic daydram of a culture paralyzed by choice and spoiled by the privileges of open communication.