I have a confession to make.
I check Missed Connections on the Maine Craigslist site every day.
For those of you unfamiliar with Missed Connections, it’s only one of the best peeks into people’s minds online. If you like Post Secret, then you are going to love Missed Connections. Basically people go onto Missed Connections and post about those people that floated into and out of their lives without a way to get in touch again.
Or maybe there is a way, but they are just too shy/nervous/totally wussy.
The Missed Connections come from all over the place. People who meet at their local supermarket. People who watch someone from the passenger seat of a moving vehicle in Portland. People who are smitten by their concert bartender.
Some people post asking for their missed connection to be found, so that they might be able to create a love connection from it. Others post wistful musings, about forbidden love or relationships that are no more or things they wish were.
It’s pure romantic and idealistic drivel that is totally irrational.
And I love it. It’s like my deep dark dirty secret.
Photo Credit: Getty Images – David Woolley
As if this starry eyed obsession weren’t enough, my connection with Missed Connections goes even further. Cause if I were going to create one of those big bad check-it-off-and-relish-in-the-glory Life Lists, I would absolutey add this bullet point:
Be listed as someone’s Missed Connection
Checking in constantly to see who is looking for that person they missed in a fleeting moment, a girl can’t help but wonder “Has anyone ever felt that way about me?” Wondering if I had just chosen one of the other sliding doors what would have happened. If someone else has spent their time talking and laughing with me, left to wonder if they should have taken the chance. Knowing I made enough of an impression that someone took the time to write a post about me.
I posted a few of my own Missed Connections over the past month (I know…the things I do for my readers!) with a varied level of responses.
The first, a guy I watched from afar as he performed at a local improv show, garnered not a single response.
The second, a guy who flirted with me over a case of Shipyard at Hannaford (seriously…how could I NOT try to chat it up with a guy who flirts with me over micrbrews?!) While my Shipyard guy did not flirt with me, a different 57-year old man emailed me about someone HE met at Hannaford and then asked if I might want to go out sometime.
The third, a wistful note about a guy I have known since 2004 and had a crush on pretty much since then but could never date or even talk about dating because of the complications. That one got five responses! Three telling me to put aside the complications and just go for it. One telling me that he wished someone as sweet as me pined for years after him. And one from a very nice guy who thought maybe *he* might be my Missed Connection (sorry, I but I hope that you mustered up the guts to ask out YOUR co-worker at TD Bank!)
It made me realize that it’s like so many other dating situations, what works for some won’t work for others. Sure, we all know someone who met their significant other in some outrageous and totally romantic way.
But the reality is that most of us just find love in a boring and natural way. That stories like this are fun to watch in movies, but they rarely happen in “real life” application. I know it’s a silly romantic fantasy, setting myself up for a guy that will probably never exist.
But it’s still kinda fun to think about.
And to the boy in the fiction section of Longfellow Books. You came over and looked through books with me for awhile. Wearing a messenger bag slung across your chest. I wish I had asked your name at least.
Consider this my newest Missed Connection.
Have you ever posted on Missed Connections? Been the object of a Missed Connection? Wished you had/were? What’s it like?
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