October 2011
3 posts
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Stories like that don't happen, though, do they? /...
This Missed Connection was inspired by Sophie Blackall’s lovely new book, Missed Connections: Love, Lost and Found.
I don’t know where to begin. I want to say it was magic. I want to say you were in a bear costume or were on a bike shaped like a swan. If I close my eyes, I can almost see that—as if someone has illustrated just that scene. Stories like that don’t happen,...
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The Ten Best Craigslist Pick-Up Ads for Occupy... →
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Not to be Missed
Join us at the launch party for Sophie Blackall’s book of illustrated Missed Connections! We are very honored to be introducing Sophie.
September 2011
2 posts
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Save the Date: Launch Party for Sophie Blackall's...
Thursday, October 6 7 p.m. WORD bookstore 126 Franklin Street Brooklyn, NY
* * *
Sophie Blackall will present her new book and share the stage with audience members who want to share their own missed connection stories.
With a special introduction from Brett Fletcher Lauer and Gretchen Scott, editors of shipsthatpass.tumblr.com
This event is free and open to the public.
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Interpreter of Maladies, p. 83. / w4m / Chicago /...
You: Dashing youth in a white T-shirt sitting al fresco at Beans and Bagels by the train tracks. I am the señora sitting at a table with a newborn, young boy, and husband. We are attractive and dark. Your hair is tousled, and you are giving keen interest to Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies. So sexy. I noticed you looking at me, nursling at my bosom. A HA! I caught you. This isn’t her at...
August 2011
2 posts
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There is so much to dread / m4w / 27 / Manhattan
My friends tell me it is too soon or that the grass is growing tall beneath my feet. There is so much to dread. I’ve never traded flirtatious texts after midnight. What is the difference between “seeing,” “hanging out with,” and “dating” someone? I can’t even maintain eye contact with women walking on the street. I’m shy, I’m insecure, I fear rejection and the possibility my male gaze (I’ve taken...
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almost all the way / w4m / 28 / A to Far Rockaway
I got on the A at 207 noticed you at 181 I was sitting you were standing by 168 I was certain you were glancing at me at 145th you sat (you: fitted button-up) you didn’t seem too stalkerish I had time to think about it all the way down (me: not frowning, just intent on our joint future) at Chambers afraid you had got up to leave but you were giving up your seat and almost had a heart attack again...
July 2011
1 post
3 tags
Construct / m4w / Home Depot
Let me build you a house. Here, a nail. Here, a piece of wood. I have told you that this will all be gone soon: the ground is unstable, the ground is not solid. I would rebuild this city for you if I could—I would place long smooth stones into the silt and we would walk on them, your heels digging into the gaps from time to time so you would stumble. My feet are flat—they have no...
June 2011
1 post
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May 2011
2 posts
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L Train / Skinny Jeans, etc / m4w / New York
I’ve experienced infidelity without guilt and will hold any part of your anatomy upon request. You could call me a submissive in wolf’s clothing, with mouth measurements approximately four by four. I know the birth dates of Calvin Klein and Jackie O, prefer intellectual sparring with woman on top. I can do amazing things with whipped cream, but prefer yogurt. Sixth grade education isn’t enough, my...
April 2011
2 posts
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SUNNING IN DOLORES PARK ON SATURDAY / SF / W4M
You had commie energy in the old school mimeo style: earnest and bearded and ready to take down a wall. You and your comrades were kicking it on an old poncho and passing around an iPhone, maybe pictures of your art car or your Angry Birds high score. I liked the McCain/Palin t-shirt you were wearing ironically and the way you so expertly rolled a joint with two fingers. I didn’t even mind...
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❒ Single ❒ Taken / w4m / 25 / Manhattan
✔ Will probably hook up with anyone who writes a Missed Connection about me at the last LCD Soundsystem show. via Laurel Crosby Actual Responses to the Ad:
……. ? [Email included a link to following missed connection] LCD Soundsystem Show 3/31 / m4w / 26 / Midtown West Jaime, or is it Jamie? We met as I left the intensely packed...
March 2011
3 posts
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Mr. Airport Dude / w4m / somewhere in Nashville
This is not so much of a missed connection but a missed opportunity or even, perhaps, a misused or abused connection. I am sorry you think I am crazy, psychotic, eccentric, obsessed, neurotic, erotic or any of those terms used to describe people (primarily women) that have heads that spin around 360 and foam at the mouth and have the red dazed “crazy eyes” Yes, I am sorry that I...
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Snowy McNally Jackson / m4w / 26 / New York
I want to say something about the certain slant of snow from the window of an office building or I wanted to mention how your gloved hand caught my attention as you held the door and I paused to brush the snow off my coat. I wanted to follow you around the bookstore but I knew that would seem like I didn’t need a book. The book that I ended up looking at wasn’t what I came in...
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Your Screaming Baby / w4m / 36 / Brooklyn
You: a middle-aged Dad with a screaming baby in a stroller. Me: a very pregnant lady who saw her future staring her in the face. We were sitting across from one another on a Bay Ridge-bound R train when your baby started screaming in that paint-peeling way that makes people hate children. I watched as you tried everything short of duct taping the baby’s head to your leg to make it stop, but...
February 2011
4 posts
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Sassy But I Liked It (w/ Century 21 bag on L...
You got off at Graham Ave. but I wish you hadn’t. We made a bit of flirty eye contact before you simply said the name of the book I was holding. You were wearing black jeans and a black jacket, white sweater underneath? You gave me a look before you exited like maybe you wanted to know more? Well, you can know more. Send a note and tell me what book I had so I know its you. I’d...
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Laundromat / m4m / over 40 / NYC / Chelsea
You’re probably the kind of guy who doesn’t want to muck up your life, which is probably why you saw me coming, someone like you. You were standing outside the laundromat on Seventh near 20th. You had a beard, a dark beard. You were tall: six foot two, three. Strong jaw, strong brow-line, no excess in your face and chin. All plane and and edges and bone. That look in your eyes...
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Muscle Beach Jungle / w4m / 29 (Venice)
You were the bodybuilder in the tattered green “Throwing Copper” tee, at the north edge of the gym (just down from the basketball hoops). No doubt you bench-pressed all sorts of tourists that day, but perhaps you remember a shy, skinny thing whose glasses fell off at the apex of one of your reps? You were so sweet, letting me down with one arm while you dusted off my specs with the...
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Upcoming Event: CoverSpy/Alikewise/Young to... →
We (Brett & Gretchen) and STP contributor Hesper Desloovere will be reading Ships that Pass stuff at this event, titled “I Like Your Glasses,” which is sure to be delightful.
February 10
7 pm
Housing Works Bookstore
Hosted by Alikewise (a dating site that matches you based on your taste in books!), CoverSpy, and the Young to Publishing Group
January 2011
4 posts
5 tags
Man reading children’s book / w4m / 35ish /...
I saw you with your little boy at Powell’s Books on Hawthorne. I was the one at the magazine rack who kept straying over to the kid’s table and asking you dumb questions. I think you were reading Runaway Bunny but I’m not sure. It was around 9pm on a Saturday night and I was just secretly impressed you didn’t look trapped. I always did. Is your boy about two? It’s amazing how quickly you forget...
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On the Abandoned Platform at Hoyt-Schermerhorn /...
Last night, around 1:37 am, you were standing on the abandoned platform at the Hoyt-Schermerhorn station, waiting for a train. You looked pensively down the tracks, checked your watch, read a book (The Dud Avocado, I believe). You had dark dark hair and splendid green eyes - I think. My distance vision isn’t the best. But hey, you were the only person to wait for a train on that...
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Sex Party Soulmate / w4m / 38 / Hollywood
This is awkward, but I’m going to have to describe your penis because I didn’t get a very clear look at your face. The swingers’ party (Hollywood Hills, Tudor mansion, this past Saturday) was incredibly dark, and I’m going to be very honest: I have trouble telling black men apart. BUT I responded to you somewhere deep down within me, and so I believe that I truly locked onto your inner self,...
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Lorem Ipsum / m4w / 31 / New York
I’m placing this here for you. I will change it later. via Brett Fletcher Lauer Actual Response to the Ad Hey, I’m working on a project about missed connections on craigslist in NY and I was wondering if you would be willing to answer a few questions about your experience. I know that craigslist is kind of sketchy to begin with and...
December 2010
3 posts
6 tags
Why Are We Not in the Streets? / m4w / 33 / The...
I think I might have seen you in the streets, but I don’t see you there now. I’m not there but I’m looking at the streets, so I feel like I have a close eye on the situation in the streets. There aren’t very many people there but I want you to be there. For instance, when we first met—or rather, when I saw you first, and then you might have seen me—we were...
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Old Scotch / M4M / East Village, NYC
You collapsed on Houston and Lafayette, I think, this was a while ago, but I’m sure it was four in the afternoon and a Thursday, also, you were wasted and wearing a black suit jacket, white t-shirt, really dirty. You collapsed backwards, toward the curb. I was walking behind you—I was wearing a black vest from EMS and had this wraparound mustache that left my chin looking like the end of...
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Packed and Waiting / m4w / 33 / (Northampton)
You used to buzz around Hugo’s but I haven’t seen you recently. It was your red bow that caught my attention. Remember the night we could feel the heat coming off the walls? A storm outside, and the smokers were huddled under the awning. We played a game with peanut M&Ms from the gumball machine until we ran out of coins. Those four Smith students wouldn’t leave you alone, so it wasn’t...
November 2010
11 posts
7 tags
MISS YOUR ROAST BEEF HEART w4m / 39 / Dean Street,...
The night we met I had two things in mind: a ride home and my finger in your waxy ear. Now they are tearing down that old bar and it makes me feel like yellow paper. I miss your roast beef heart, Dally.
Before we had eleven kids, before we moved to the sticks like miniature Indian schoolgirls huddling against a sandstorm in bright red saris, time was everywhere, heavy as a cast iron bath, toxic...
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We Didn’t Start the Fire / w4m / 30 / 110th Street...
The last time I saw you in person was in 1991, twenty years ago this spring, when we were in the fifth grade. That summer, you moved away. I’ve looked for you since, on the Friendsters and Myspaces and Facebooks of the world, but never very thoroughly, and without any success. Once, I googled you, and found that you played in a bluegrass band. I think that means fiddles. You moved to the South, a...
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Pickles Aren’t For Everyone/ m4w/ Atlantic Avenue...
It’s not easy to look good while eating a falafel while walking down the street, but that’s exactly what you were doing. You were on Atlantic Avenue, just past Sahadi’s, and really plowing your face into that tinfoil, like you didn’t care who saw. You were wearing a dress with flowers on it, and your dark brown hair was all in a pile on top of your head. What do you like on your falafel, I wanted...
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Antichrist Mayor/ w4m / 40 / The West Village, NYC
You were eating a chocolate muffin in front of the Magnolia Bakery, and the specks in your hair shone wild in the dark autumn night. I loved you from the minute I saw you, and knew you were my soulmate. I didn’t talk to you because I was shy and disheveled—oh how I wish I did! You rode away on your motorcycle, and it was obvious you were making plans to poison all the apples at Trader ...
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Ships that Pass Featured on Breakup Girl
“Enjoying the newly-habit-forming element of “Is it live or is it Ships That Pass?” probably won’t bode well for anyone’s to-do list. And then there’s the question of whether Missed Connectioning under false pretenses is ultimately setting up a stranger for disappointment. Judging by the responses so far, though, it seems that what drives people to reply isn’t the expectation that...
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Another Lost Boy in Mercer Books / m4m / 25 / NYC,...
My favorite part about your jacket was that it had your name on it. On the back bottom right just above the buckle. White stenciled on black leather. Or maybe it was someone else’s name. Maybe you bought it like that. What I know is that you don’t have a boyfriend. You looked too sad and beautiful. You parted your hair like someone who doesn’t have a girlfriend either....
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on the line / w4m / 22 / Atlanta (Ford Factory...
I told you that the elevator smelled like crayons. You laughed as we rode down two floors toward the laundromat, and I imagined that same smell would make my head spin if you drove me around in your German-engineered car. Your clothes weren’t quite ready; the washing machine window held in waves of suds, but my sudden need to know you better was like struggling to contain the ocean. You were...
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a night at the theatre / w4m / 30 NYC (downtown)
you: a blueman. you were with your group. me: watching you in your group of god-like bluemen. me: the girl you dragged onstage to eat sponge rolls with you last tuesday. you: the guy feeding me the sponge rolls. me: someone with a condition that makes it hard for her to hold a job. you: the condition. via Paul Legault Actual Response to...
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OOPS! / m4w / 33 (F Train)
You were definitely wearing a wig. I was wearing a wig. My wig had a sort of facial structure built into it, like a nose made of hair and hair-cheekbones and a hair-mouth, and then a little bouffant on top of the hair-head on top of my head. We were on the F train. I spilled some yogurt, was cleaning it up etc., and when I looked back you were gone. If you remember me and want to swap tops...
October 2010
7 posts
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Paragon Nightclub, New Year’s Day/ m4m / South...
You were there, ‘member? Siouxsie Sioux sang “Peek-a-Boo” and I was stalking you like a tigre. It was New Year’s Day, 1991, or ’92, between 1 and 5 AM. You wore skinny jeans, cowboy boots and a fitted plaid short-sleeve man shirt over a white CK undershirt. You wore it like a man and took it off with your teeth after I unbuttoned your shirt. I was like mmmm and you were like mm mmmm and then...
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From L magazine--Ships That Pass: Craigslist...
Ships That Pass is a relatively new tumblr project started and curated by old L friend Gretchen Scott and Brett Fletcher Lauer, the poet. It’s accurately and officially described as “a collection of fake, imagined, and literary missed connections posted to Craigslist and then re-posted here with real responses,” if any, and it’s written by a series of guest writers. We...
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He’s not good enough for you. I could tell just by...
You were standing with him in the grocery store, talking about what to have for dinner. You said you knew it was late but you felt like making something nice even if it took a while. You looked really pretty. Your hair was pulled back and you had this brown jacket on that made it seem like fall even though it was still summer. He said something about wanting to go see a show that night with his...
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Geriatric Barbie Seeks Miniature Rodin / w4w4m /...
“That’s going to be a missed connection,” you murmured as the guy you’d been flirting with sauntered out of Ritual. Within minutes—seconds even—you were checking your computer to see if he’d posted. You: Geriatric Barbie; a leggy blonde with grapefruit boobs, forever legs, Brady Bunch hair and leathery skin. Him: a miniature Rodin, dark corkscrew curls bouncing in eyes like black...
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Williamsburg Guy With Beard / w4m / 23 (L train)
You were reading and mumbling under your breath. I couldn’t quite figure out what you were saying, but it looked like you were reading your book backwards, so maybe you were confused, or dyslexic. I’m totally ADD, so I get it. You were wearing a wide brimmed hat but not your usual hipster fedora—kind of a flat look. And your hair! Most guys in the neighborhood rock an asymmetrical style, but...
September 2010
13 posts
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Bridge Jumping/ W4M / Poughkeepsie (The Walkway)
You smelled of burning maps, smirked as to let slip the dogs of war. Not the stale slate windbreaker & steel-cut oats above the Hudson. I was whistling “Wake Up, Little Susie” & wearing a huipil. Your crow’s feet, tasseographical signs for journey of hindrance, diploma . The conversation went like giraffes fighting: How do you behead a poem like a horse? Why is the “ch” silent in...
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DESPERATELY SEEKING SOMETHING LIKE ARIZONA, LOS...
You: Elegant but messy, like a mix of Princess Grace and Kesha. Odd combo, but it works. Blue line Damen stop. After, Violet Hour. You had a city or state name. I know because the bartender (tight shirt, faux “tail”) said it. It was not California or Atlanta although those are fine names, nothing against them. You were reading something. Maybe Richard Rorty, the one where he’s in...
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YOU STOLE A PACKAGE OFF MY FRONT STOOP / w4m / 40...
You stole a package the mailman left on my front stoop this afternoon. He’d hid it behind a post, so you would have had to opened the front gate to my yard in order to climb my porch steps and steal this box that was addressed specifically to me. I know the box was there because the mailman knocked hard on my door when he delivered it, but I was so tired I didn’t bring the box back inside....
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There For a Reason / w4m / Atlanta (MARTA Five...
Through the stopping and the going of the train, you held your bike like a bride, gently but everyone knew it belonged to you. Would you be that gentle with a lover, a thing not as stable as two wheels getting you around town? If we were a couple, would you always have your hand around my waist, just resting it there? I ask because that’s what I want, just a hand there, reminding me that I am not...
