Missed Connections
Why I read the classifieds (and why you should too).
I recently asked an old acquaintance how she’d met her boyfriend of three years. Both were buying socks at American Apparel one day, she told me. They compared and laughed about their purchases, then parted ways without even asking the other’s name. Later, unable to get the tall stranger out of her head, she went on Craigslist and posted an ad under Missed Connections. Because, why not.
And he saw it.
It’s romantic enough to make anyone start reading “Missed Connections”, those classifieds posted by ordinary people in hopes they’ll reconnect with that stranger who got away before a phone number or full name could be exchanged.
But truth be told, I’d been secretly reading those ads for years before hearing my friend’s story. Before Craigslist, I read them in the way back pages of the Eugene Weekly over coffee every weekend, in a section called “I SAW U”.
Some of the ads bordered on the creepy or criminal, others harmless or romantic. There’s the guy who liked that girl’s glasses but was too shy to ask her out for a drink; there’s the Virgo who struck up a conversation with the Gemini buying champagne at Whole Foods and felt a spark.
I used to think I was the only one who read these bits of micro non-fiction. But as I came out about my hobby of keeping track of who’d missed who in the world, I’ve found others who’ve been regular readers of these ads as well. Several others. And all of us Missed Connections fans have two things in common. First, we think we’re the only ones who read these ads (a myth I’ve debunked by now). Second, we’re not quite sure why we do.
So I challenged myself to answer that question.
At first I thought it was voyeurism that drove people like me to the “I SAW U”s. In the same way I eavesdrop on others’ conversations in line at the coffee shop and invent stories about the couples at nearby tables over dinner, Missed Connections is people-watching on a grand scale. Only better. Because in addition to playing witness to these ordinary moments, you also get to creep in on the vulnerabilities that accompanied them.
“We shared a moment but I got shy like an idiot,” reads one ad. “All the other baristas are really great,” reads another, “but I’m secretly disappointed when you don’t make my coffee.” I am mesmerized by the honesty of these admissions. I imagine them rising like thought bubbles from everyone around me on the bus.
Then I wondered if my fascination with Missed Connections is an extension of my love-hate relationship with technology. In a digital world that sometimes sucks the serendipity out of living (we always know what everyone else is doing, all the time), these ads are a reminder that we can still be transformed by coincidence. Despite smartphones and dating apps that allow you to text with strangers who are literally in the same bar or club as you, I’m reassured that some folks still look up and into the faces of those around them. We still see one another. IRL.
Which made me wonder if maybe those of us who read these ads started doing so because we hoped to be seen ourselves. Reading the “I SAW U”s back in Eugene, I used to imagine I was the girl they’d spotted. Had I been buying beer at Trader Joe’s last Thursday? Or renting Kill Bill at the video store? Maybe? Of course I have yet to read a missed connections ad about myself, despite hoping halfway that I might.
And in the end I realized that’s what it’s really all about: hope. The pages of Missed Connections are like a Twitter for dreamers; an anonymous collection of traps set by people in high hopes that the one who got away will fall right in, land in their lap, call on the phone suddenly. Who cares that the chances of connecting through one of these ads are slim, the world is full of hope for that. And that’s what matters.
In a Seattle coffee shop last weekend, I picked up a copy of The Stranger and found myself leafing to the back pages, happy to see the familiar section in all caps, “I SAW U”. Smack dab in the middle was an ad titled, “We met on March 5th in 1994.”
“1994, can you believe it? You were so cute. We talked only a few moments as you left the Dubliner far too early. What to do? Post an “I Saw U” ad in The Stranger! I did. You didn’t even read The Stranger that often, but this issue caught your eye. It took a few days and you finally called the number. Here we are TWENTY years later, all due to The Stranger. We even picked our wedding officiant from an ad on the back page. Best decision I ever made was building a life with you. I could not ask for a better partner, father for our daughter, and all around Cute Dude. Here is to twenty more wonderful years.”
It was a moment of confirmation for me — as long as these classifieds exist, I will read them.
I’ll read them because in a world of algorithmic dating, I am buoyed by these people and their shamelessly optimistic blurbs. I’ll read them to remember that we are all more similar than we think, living our lives in search of connection, reaching for it. And I’ll read them because, like all of us, some small part of me hopes someone might someday see me and just maybe reach out.
I would totally reply.
