Man for woman, woman for man, man for man, woman for woman, trans for trans
Codes placed at the start of an online personal to show who is writing and who they are looking for.
| Type | Modern shorthand and terms |
|---|---|
| Category | Identity code |
| Stands for | Man for woman, woman for man, man for man, woman for woman, trans for trans |
| On Reddit | F4M, M4F, F4F, M4M, T4M, M4A (A for anyone); R4R means redditor for redditor |
| Earliest example we have found | 2005, Craigslist guide to personals acronyms (not claimed as the first use) |
These codes are most associated with Craigslist, which began in 1995 as an email list, became a website in 1996, and closed its US personals on March 22, 2018. They did the job that the nineteenth-century ad did in prose: say who is writing, and to whom. We have not found a reliable date for their first use. Craigslist's guide also lists m4t, and later posts used T4T and T4M.
Reddit’s personals boards use the same pattern with F for female and M for male: F4M is a woman looking for a man, M4F a man looking for a woman, and F4F and M4M the same within each. Many boards use T for trans, and A (anyone) or R (redditor) when the poster is open to anyone, as in M4A or F4R. The tag sits in the post title with the poster’s age and location, as in 27 [F4M] #Chicago. R4R itself stands for redditor for redditor. Our guide to Reddit personals explains how the boards work.
On AseeksB, who you are writing to is set directly: posters choose the audience for each post by gender and age range, and Supporters can add distance.
Know a term we are missing? Suggest one.
How this fits into 170 years of personal ad shorthand: From Object Matrimony to LTR: How Personal Ads Learned to Talk in Code.
All dictionary entries · The Personals Archive · How to write a personal ad
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