Posts on Craigslist missed connections were the romantic bread and butter of the 90s and early 2000s.
In a time when the masses were finally plugged into the web, but still didn't have the easy swiping abilities of Tinder, missed connections flooded the internet with mysterious descriptions of crushes and chance interactions worthy of a Meg Ryan movie.
You didn't have to write one yourself to feel vicarious butterflies for the people putting themselves out there for love or a fling. In fact, skimming "missed connections" to find a juicy post about a stranger was a common pasttime for people of all different ages, whether happily married or single and looking.
And while our current online dating landscape is far less mysterious and serendipitous in nature, the era of missed connections still marks a specific zeitgeist of yore.
While many of the posts sunk into the abyss without connecting star-crossed lovers, there were missed connections that led to people meeting up, and in some cases, actually starting relationships.
In a popular Reddit thread, people who met someone through a missed connection post shared their stories, and they range from romantic to mildly terrifying.
My friend was carrying her groceries on a busy subway from Manhattan to Queens and this guy gave up his seat for her. They didn't chat, but locked eyes a few times and as the guy got off, my friend said they smiled and laughed at each other. After she got home her roommate told her to post on missed connections, but when she went on the guy had already posted about her! They dated for a short while, but he then got back together with an ex he'd met through AA.
This sorta counts... Almost 20 years ago I was looking through the missed connections of the local paper and there was an ad that said “Some people are looking for happiness. Some people are looking for love. Me? Im looking for an authentic ‘Down with OPP’ baseball cap. Can you help me find one?”
It just so happens that the bodega right by my house had a bunch of hats on the wall including a Down with OPP one. So I call the number in the ad and it’s just a recording of “Down with OPP” then at the end the guy comes on and says “YOU Down with OPP?” I leave a message about the hat and that’s that.
Until next week there is an ad in the same paper that says “To my main man with the Brothrs Market hookup. I now walk tall and proud with my OPP hat. Thank you thank you thank you!” So yeah. I helped connect a guy with a hat. Does that count?
I used to browse Missed Connections. I saw one that said something like, "I see you walking your dog on [street] every day. You're cute and I'd like to talk to you." That was my street, and I'd seen lots of girls walking dogs there, so I figured I'd help a bro out.
I sent back something like, "There are quite a few cute girls who walk dogs on [street], you may want to update your post with a description of the girl and the dog. I'm the average looking blonde with the scruffy white dog."
He emailed back saying that I was the one he was referring to! WHAT. So I thanked him, and told him (truthfully) that I was a single mom going through a hard time and wasn't ready to even think about dating.
I got a friendly email back, wishing me the best, and that was that.
My husband and I met on missed connections. We're no longer married.
Edit: Alright, here's the story, which I hesitated to tell because my ex frequents Reddit.
It wasn't really a missed connection in the sense that one of us saw the other and posted about it. I had just moved to a new area and hadn't met many people, yet, so to entertain myself (I had yet to hear about Reddit) I would post clearly joke (I was not subtle) missed connections. The post he responded to was me looking for Waldo. He responded to me jokingly, as Waldo, saying he was in search of his love Carmen San Diego. We chatted for a while and we hit it off. Met a few weeks later. Got married a few years later. Getting divorced a few years after that.
I met someone from a missed connection. Once we met, I realized that I didn’t have any romantic interest in this person, and he didn’t have any in me. But, we became pretty good friends! We were even roommates one year when I was in university. Even now when we both have our own SO’s, we still like to get coffee and catch up. He’s a really awesome person!
It was New Years Eve and I was having a horrible night. I couldn't get a cab from the house party I was at to get to party #2. I was wearing massive heels and had to walk all the way home because I was in too bad a mood to continue my night.
As I reached my corner, a super drunk, super gorgeous guy came up to me and wished me a happy New Year's. I was about to tell him to *uck off but i noticed that he was freaking beautiful and had a small bloody cut on his forehead. I pointed it out and he shrugged and stumbled away.
The next day, I decided to post a missed connection and he responded by that evening. He said he didn't remember getting a booboo. We hung out for a bit but I stopped seeing him because i didn't want to ONLY have anal sex.
I have a good friend that met this guy at a bus stop, I believe. They chatted casually for a few minutes and that was the end of it. Later, my friend was kicking himself for not asking the guy out for coffee or something and posted a missed connection about it.
About a week later, bus stop guy’s boss was browsing missed connections and recognized the description of the guy’s hat so he sent him the posting.
And now, several years later, my friend and bus stop guy are married.
My friend still has a screenshot of the missed connections post saved in his phone.
I found one about me written by a long-gone ex. I let it be.
I saw this girl at Starbucks that was just gorgeous. Looked like she was distracted going through some sh*t on the phone so I didn't say anything. (don't wanna be that guy who can't read social clues)
Left and kicked myself over it later so next day I posted in missed connections. (although I was positive nothing would come of it, just felt good putting it out there)
Around 3 days later get a response. Not from her, but from another girl who read it and liked the sincerity in it. We ended up talking and exchanging numbers and have been dating since (about 6 months now).
In college, I got dragged to a barn dance by my friends. Stood around bored for an hour or so, and left. The following week, there was an ad in the local classified section (this was in the 80's, so that was our "Craigs List " back then) from a guy describing me to a T. Said "I saw you there and would love to meet you and get to know you better "
Flattered, I agreed. We decided to meet at a local bar. I got there right on time and looked around. It took me a while to find him because HE SHOWED UP WITH FOUR FRIENDS. He didn't even talk to me for most of the short time I was there, because he was playing stupid drinking games with his buddies and ignoring me. One of his friends stayed hitting on me and grabbed my a*s. So I left.
He called THREE DAYS LATER and said "You left!" And I was like, "You just noticed?"
Went to see an oddly specific show. Outside, and then all throughout the evening inside, this very tall, but strikingly beautiful woman kept making prolonged eye contact with me. I was with some friends in a different city, and they wanted to leave the bar right after the show, so I didn't get a chance to talk to her. That week, back home, I posted a MC in her city, and she responded. It didn't really go anywhere, but she shared her SuicideGirls profile with me that had some nudes, so there's that...
Not an actual missed connection, but I was well known in an area I lived in as the "AT&T sign girl"
A guy posted on missed connections looking for me and come to find out, he just wanted to give me free tickets to Busch Gardens that he got because he worked there.
If I hadn't gotten another job when I did, I could've gotten more free tickets from him.
I posted this before but it applies here too.
A guy once posted a missed connection about me (easy to figure out with the description he gave and the location he saw me). My boss actually showed it to me because even she figured it out. I was 18 at the time and when I told my mom about it she told me that I should email him and say hey. (She didn't know better and I was naive and eager to hang out with him, as I remembered who he was).
I messaged him, we hit it off, hung out for a while and everything seemed cool. Then things got nuts. In the few short months we hung out, he found out that his clinically psychotic ex girlfriend was pregnant. She got kicked out of countless homeless shelters for starting fights, and her mom wouldn't let her live with her because she was freaking insane, so she moved back in with CL guy. While he was upset to have her back in his life, he was happy to have a baby and was eager to take care of it (he was going to fight for full custody after it was born because of mother's issues). The entire time she was pregnant, she drank, smoked, and did crack....they would get into screaming matches that ended up with her beating the sh*t outta him because he was begging her to stop doing drugs.
Eventually he tried to move out. After one particularly bad fight, he packed everything up and went to a hotel without telling her so she wouldn't try and follow. While he was out, she snooped through the stuff he left behind and found the ring he was going to use to propose to her before she showed her true psychotic colors. She thought he bought it because of the baby, started wearing it and posted about it all over Facebook. Through all of this, I was there to help support him emotionally and be an escape from his sh*tty life. I certainly never saw him as someone I'd be in a relationship with but I enjoyed hanging out with him.
Then, when psycho girl announced that they were "engaged", he decided "ahhh sh*t.... alright whatever let's do it". So they moved back in together and she made him cut all connection with me (no problem...that was too much drama for my liking). A few days later, I get multiple long messages from this girl, her cousin, and her second profile she made after I blocked her.
She accused me of being a homewrecker and a slut, saying that she was going to call the cops on me (no idea what for) and that I needed to watch me back because she "knew" where I lived. (She didn't....the town she said I lived in wasn't even in the same county of where I actually lived). I kept blocking her and eventually she shut up. Three years later, that guy messaged me on Facebook. They had the baby, moms in a mental hospital and he has full custody. He wanted to meet up and "pick up where we left off" but I noped the f*ck out of that.
My step brother posted missed connection for a girl he saw when he was at traffic court. She was there for a speeding ticket just like he was so he thought he had a good meet cute story. She responded to his ad with a polite "thanks but no thanks".
He did end up meeting his wife on Craigslist a few months later, but just by posting a regular ad though.
Randomly my friend saw my name and description mentioned on one of these missed connections and sent it to me. I decided to followed up and went back to the store I originally met her (the girl who posted) and asked her for her phone number. We went on some really nice summer dates. Long walks and talks, drinking beer etc. September rolls around.
Then one day we meet up for lunch but she was a little stressed about money and rent. So I said I would see if I could help her get a job at the place I worked at. Some warning signs started to appear like when I asked her to make a personalized cover letter instead of a generic one and she got upset by that. In any case, she made a new one and submitted it. At work, I put in a good word for her and eventually she was hired.
At this point the relationship wasn't past the point of mere dates but that was OK as I was soon going abroad for half a year and didn't want more. Soon this girl's true colors revealed themselves. I noticed early on that it was tricky getting a hold of her at times deducing it to some people being unattached to technology. But realized she had a pattern of selectively getting back to anyone. My coworker one day tells me that she saw her name on a weekly schedule and didn't want to work one of the shifts so she just took a pen and scratched her name off. Without alerting the manager or finding a replacement.
As in a grown adult scratching her name off a disposable schedule thinking that that would make everything ok. Anyways long story short: she was a bag of issues and seemed to be stuck in a world that involved bending reality to meet her needs. I wrote her a message on Fb one day telling her how I regretted helping her and then deleted her off my FB which was like a slap on the face back then. The end.
Edit: post asked for an actual experience. It didn't say it had to be a thrill ride blockbuster or a David Lynch piece.
Not my story, but my roommates at the time. He was biking home after a party in a particularly flamboyant jacket. Later that night there was a missed connection describing his bike route and jacket.
He reached out to the woman (also an avid cyclist). They dated for 3-4 months. Then, one day, she was hit by a truck while cycling in the bike lane. Died instantly. I used to pass her white bike every day on my bike commute.
I was at work one day when a co-worker, named Erika, told me I'd had a missed connection written about me. I worked at a bookstore, downtown in a big city as a visual merchandiser. I had read the Missed Connections before, dreamed that one would get written about me, but never thought it would happen-cause that's the stuff out of a Rom-Com. Never the less she sent me a link to the missed connection and this is it:
Working at (Name of my bookstore) on Sunday (20th of December) (the address of my old bookstore)- m4w
You were pushing a cart or trolley full of books, I was in a rush as I passed by you. We locked eyes a few times though. You had long dark hair, and I was wearing a toque and black leather Jacket.
Now this may seem pretty vague, but it's me. Nobody else was in that day and merch people push carts like it's nobody business, and the other merch girls on that day were a red haired girl and a pale brunette.
So I responded. Mostly because I don't like to leave people hanging. People should wonder "whatever happened." HE GOT CREEPY REAL QUICK. I mean 0-stalker in 60 seconds. I went on vacation with my parents (Christmas time) and he emailed me 3 times in the span of 5 days being like "Where'd you go?", "You still there?", "Drop off on me?" He added me on FB and IG without me telling him what those handles were. He started liking pictures I'd been tagged in on my friends Instagram. Visited my ex's pages. He kept pushing for my phone numbers or saying he "was going to be around my work" on days I wasn't even working. Luckily I had already found a new job.
I think he's still on my Facebook contacts. His last message to me reads "One of those non-replying types,eh? :P " YEAH I DON'T THINK SO, BUD.
My mom and I were driving somewhere once and this gorgeous guy on a motorcycle pulls up next to us at a light and we we're both discreetly swooning. I figured I'd try and make a post there for the hell of it and I got a reply from the guys dad? He provided a photo and it was him. The guy turned out to be the boyfriend of this girl I went to high school with. I never contacted him after creeping on Facebook but I really just wanted to know who he was. I still found it weird that the guys dad replied with his information, knowing he was in a relationship.
I met a guy at a bar (hanging out playing bags all afternoon) but had to leave suddenly because my friend was too goddamn drunk and got in a fight. I posted a missed connection describing what I knew (his trade union and name and general physical description). Someone in his union saw it and it got back to him.
By the time he responded I had gone back to NYC (I was visiting my home state). We engaged in text banter for a couple months until I was home for Christmas and he brought me to his union shop’s holiday party (a hockey game in a suite). We hung out throughout the break until I went back to NYC for work. Any sort of long-distance thing wouldn’t have made sense, so we left it as a cute little holiday-break fling and mostly fell out of touch.
A couple years later, I’m back living in my home state but he has a girlfriend and I’ve found someone else as well.
His employees pointed him to our missed connection via the dog park, we hooked up, but didn't see each other again. I think he was going through some stuff.
I was asked to dance at a club one night when I was just about to go out for a smoke. When I came back inside, she was gone. Posted a missed connections and heard back from her the next day. We went on a date a week later and she turned out to be a fairly poor conversationalist and we had basically nothing in common.
I was at a bus stop and noticed a guy checking me out from his car. We kept making eye contact, but it was hard to actually see him as I was looking through his windows. We kept looking, and it was obvious that under different circumstances we would have started up a conversation, but the light turned green and he pulled off.
I would never think to post to Missed Connections, but I thought - well, it was a missed connection, why not go for it? So I posted when I got home and very quickly got a reply. He said he wanted to post, too, but he wasn’t sure if he should do he was relieved when I did.
If my memory serves me well, we ended up meeting for coffee and then hung out a few times at his apartment. I don’t think we ever had sex—I think we cuddled a few times and just talked, if I recall—and later things just sort of faded (which was okay, I am in my 20s, he was in his 40s or 50s).
So, at the end of the day - no harm, no foul. And I get an “oh yeah, I met a missed connection once” story out of it. That story has been tucked really far back in my mind, so props to this thread for making me remember it. Haha.
(I actually just looked through my old emails and found the thread where we started talking - it was sort of adorable. I just wish I’d saved the original post.)
I have a friend who is currently living with her Craigslist missed connection and they’re 2 years into a relationship with a cat! They met at a bar and spent the night together. Then her friend got sick so she went to the washrooms with her, came back a while later and the bar had closed so everyone had left, and they hadn’t swapped numbers. She posted a missed connection and he got in touch!! I love that story, i swear I’ve told it more times that she has.
I saw a missed connection with my first name (not that common) in a place I used to frequent the bars. I was curious if it was for me but something about how it was written told me it wasn’t. Then one night I got a text from some dude I met up with one time, 6 years ago, professing his undying love for me. I did a reverse number search and figured out who he was and was shocked, like oh my god that was so long ago what is wrong with this guy? It turns out he thought I was someone else with a different last name. Womp womp.
Clean out your damn contact list once every, oh I don’t know, 6 years, so this doesn’t happen to you.
If a girl blocks you, she doesn’t want to be found.
I had moved to a new city and ended up at a drag show at some local bar. A cute girl was on stage because it was her birthday. I bought her a bday drink, but only chatted for a few minutes before her friends took her away. We didn't exchange names or numbers. When I got home I decided to write a missed connection. One of her friends from the bar saw it and got me in touch. We ended up serving Christmas dinner at a homeless shelter for a first date. Nothing romantic really clicked between us, but we did stay friends for awhile.