Oh lord, it is so hot. Fifty shades of grey hot. Hotter than the single subway car you entered on the entire line with a broken air conditioner. Too hot to move to the next car at the next stop. I was with you. I felt the same way. My kindle was too hot to take out of my totebag. I leaned against the door. You stuck to a pole. It was too hot to raise my eyes from the floor. I should have. If I had I would know what you looked like. I’ve never been that into feet, but yours were okay, I guess. It was too hot to tell. It is very simple. I love you. I have air-conditioning at home.
Actual Response to the ad:
Tight and yummy Tgirls only
Oh lord, it is so hot.
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, though, do they?
Tell me they do.
I’m no different from anyone else. I look here daily. I look here to kill time at work. I look to imagine the scenarios and moments of others. I also look for someone looking for me, though secretly I don’t believe I will find myself, and also I hold the belief that once you have found your missed connection, it is all downhill from there. I want to find faith in others looking for each other—and not just the “you bought me and my friends a drink at an anonymous bar” types, but, you know, something a little more romantic, or something uncanny in how, in a city of millions of characters, there is bound to be a story starting somewhere.
Tell me there is.
via Brett Fletcher Lauer
Actual Responses to the Ad:
I look everyday, wondering if someone feels like I got away :) Oh well…we can’t all be the “cute hipster girl reading pride and prejudice and zombies on the G train”. But sometimes i’d like to think when I catch a guy stealing glances that the universe is setting up a moment that will ensure that I will stick in his mind for at least an hour ;)
* * *
I read missed connections too, for entertainment, and for the slim chance someone spotted me on the train and thought I was the most beautiful thing in the world. They are like little love stories.
* * *
Married Older Thinking about an affair.
* * *
Of course they do. I was in the bear costume, and it was you who were on the bike shaped like a swan!!
You wouldn’t happen to wear a pair of dark grey chucks would you?
* * *
I hope they do and I hope there is too.
* * *
I wasn’t in a bear costume and unfortunately I don’t own a bike shaped like a swan, but I agree with every word you said. Faith in humanity is a strange thing isn’t it? How in a city, like you said, of millions can it be so difficult to hold onto that faith?
I can’t promise you that stories like that exist but I can assure you that I exist.
Walt Whitman said it best…
Passing stranger! you do not know
How longingly I look upon you,
You must be he I was seeking,
Or she I was seeking
(It comes to me as a dream)
I have somewhere surely
Lived a life of joy with you,
All is recall’d as we flit by each other,
Fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured,
You grew up with me,
Were a boy with me or a girl with me,
I ate with you and slept with you, your body has become
not yours only nor left my body mine only,
You give me the pleasure of your eyes,
face, flesh as we pass,
You take of my beard, breast, hands,
in return,
I am not to speak to you, I am to think of you
when I sit alone or wake at night, alone
I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again
I am to see to it that I do not lose you.
* * *
Haha, I hear you. My brain is starting to rot from paper work, so I peruse the Craigslist missed connections. Why? Well, I could go for the men for women, and be disgusted by ads without even clicking them. I could check out the platonic section and see “join for free today!” So, I guess I opt out for missed connections do I develop some faith that people actually have reactions and emotions towards others outside of the bar. But then you figure in the “missed connections” part and so what the hell. Buck up and go after them the first time! I moved here a month ago, and so I hear you. But its nyc, there’s got to be some normal, non homicidal, young professionals right? :) fingers crossed.
* * *
i reconnected with someone on here that i spoke to once, because i too looked to kill time at work. i thought i would go for it — the one written about me. the guy ended up being tragically boring. what a cliché. “romance is dead”
lol
i still read them.
The Ten Best Craigslist Pick-Up Ads for Occupy Wall Street
Join us at the launch party for Sophie Blackall’s book of illustrated Missed Connections! We are very honored to be introducing Sophie. 
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.
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 all! This is her husband and I knew you were looking at my wife. You mother fucker. Had I horns I would gore you duly. Reading that book is so totally not sexy at all! Are you kidding me? I read that book. So what? Fuck you. And by that I mean go fuck yourself instead, Master Thespian! Give me a break. On the Road sucks.
via Fred Sasaki
Another Missed Connection Missed: Flagged and Removed within the hour.
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 one survey class on feminism in college) is offensive and an objectifying intrusion. I don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable with my advances, silent eyeballs or otherwise. I won’t let my eyes linger on a sheer shirt and black bra. I watch the eyes of other men; watch them turn around halfway up the block to look at an ass in short shorts. I’m satisfied smelling perfume as a woman passes.
via Brett Fletcher Lauer
Actual Responses to the Ad:
that was lovely to read. many a lucky lady who would be happy to have someone like you!
* * *
licker
* * *
Not having any success finding that person who you had a missed connection with on Craigslist? Well it’s no surprise. You’re not able to keyword search for any of the details about the encounter, the other person or even where it happened.
That’s where I T I G G Y is different. There you can search according to where the
encounter happened, what the other person looked like, and even anything distinguishing about them, such as their green handbag or their big white headphones.
If you want a better way of finding them that is free, fun and safe, check out I T I G G Y dot com.
What have you got to lose?
* * *
Oh no…
Nicely written - women love the gaze though. Don’t let them tell you any different.
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 at Metro-tech
when you started to move
only to settle in at Hoyt-Schermerhorn across the aisle
where you proceeded to give me the flirty eyeball all the way to Howard Beach!
I was too shy to continue.
But did you really need to go so far into Queens?
via Elsbeth Pancrazi
Actual Response to the Ad:
You stayed on the train, even though your stop was way before that for some guy, and you didn’t get up and say something to him? WOW!!! no wonder I am alone. man you are shy baby girl. enjoy my art.
Attached artwork:
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 arch, all things structurally flawed. My bones, they are soft. My skin, stretched thin and translucent from years of abuse, years of not building anything, years of not walking. When I build you something, something will be built. When I build you something I will know the meaning of this—to put my back into something, to know what power is and what it might be. The building we are in is taller than both of us together, we cannot touch the lights. When I build you something, I want you to stretch your arms above your head like you are praying, like you are praising. I want you to lay your hands flat on the ceiling, to bend your wrists backwards, to cause your muscles to tense up. I want your hands to feel the acoustics, to rub your fingers over the bumps like when you used to put your hand on my face, cupping my jaw, telling me that you like it when I don’t shave. I will build you this because this will all be gone. We will have a housewarming party—we will tell our friends to bring red wine, to bring candles and cookware, to place oranges in a bowl and cover it with foil. You will wear a dress and I will wear a tie and we will answer the door: we will look through the small square windows—glass I broke into shards with my hands. When we open the door, no one will be standing there. When we open the door, the water will rush in.
* * *
We were very excited to read about Brian Oliu’s collection of essays So You Know It’s Me and wanted to share one with you. Oliu posted the essays on the Tuscaloosa Craigslist Missed Connections board over the course of 45 days. On the 45th day, in accordance to Craigslist policy, the essays began to erase themselves. Available from Tiny Hardcore Press
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