Missing in Boston...

I just couldn't help myself. Here's what the Boston Missing Connections had to offer this morning (I really cannot stress enough the fact that I'm running out of material right now). Click on the pictures to read them better.

"You Almost Hit My Car On the Icy Roads" m4w 25 (Allston)

I actually thought that this would be a good premise for a crappy rom-com starring Patrick Dempsey and Kate Hudson or something. With a corny title like "Cold Hands, Warm Heart" or "Ice Queen" and in the preview "These Words" by Natasha Beddingfield would be playing. Predictable, of course, because they end up together in the end (no matter the fact it doesn't make any sense for her to give up that awesome job in LA for a guy she's known for two weeks). On another day, I will go off about how much I hate all formula romantic comedies.


"I Like The Skirts You Have Wore As Of Late" m4w (Newton)

I just love this because it reminds me of something that Daniel Cleaver would email to Bridget Jones about the hem of her skirt in an exercise of inappropriate office behavior.

"Bruins Game Show-Off" m4m 31 (Boston Garden)

And finally, this gem in the M4M section of Missed Connections. I don't know why this made me laugh so hard today, maybe it was the idea of this guy (we'll call him Larry) being on a date with his girlfriend (Pam) or out with the boys from the office and wearing his Bruins jersey as he walks into the men's facilities. Then Guy #2 comes along (we'll call him Dirk) all proud of himself, reminding Larry of days past with his roommate in college (his name will be Todd) when they used to play "just the tip..."

Seriously, one could create a whole blog centered solely compromised of Craigslist Missed Connections, Rants and Raves, Erotic Services, and the NSA section. But then one could be accused of having no life.

Missed Connection.

One day Kalyn at work asked me if I ever really read the "Missed Connections" portion of Craigslist. I will continue with this story before telling you the prologue. My answer for her was "Not really, why?" And thus she turned me on to the poetic glory that is Missed Connections.

Reading better than any piece of modern literature I can think of to date, Missed Connections is the reality TV of reading. Interestingly enough, these people kind of have it right with short, to the point, honest requests.

"To the person in the purple skirt, thank you for your smile tonight." So many questions come up! Crocker Park? Borders? What brought him to Crocker Park? Christmas shopping for his wife and kids? And Borders Books specifically? Was it a coffee table book of Ansel Adams for his teenage daughter who has shown a recent interest in photography? This person, the one in the purple skirt, what did they look like? Why not the word "woman" or "girl"? Was it a transgender so he wasn't sure? Was he oddly attracted to this transgender? Their smile, why was that so important? Did it make him feel attractive again after 19 years of marriage to an Ice Queen that banishes sex to Tuesday nights for 12 minutes only, no blow jobs, and two lousy unappreciative teenagers that would rather spend their nights in front of a computer rather than with their family? Of course who would want to with all the yelling that goes on at the dinner table lately. Or was he depressed after having lost it all in the stock market crash and his AmEx platinum card had just been declined by a twenty year-old brat with hipster glasses and a pretentious smile? From two lines and a title, this story goes so many ways.

Then there's this one, another Bookstore Love Affair at Mac's Backs in Coventry (basically our tiny midwest version of Haight-Ashbury). It was a Saturday. She had a brimmed hat and overcoat, reading a graphic novel. He couldn't keep his eyes away from this beauty, not doubt smart and interesting for having picked such an unfeminine reading choice. He lurked in the stacks, waiting, watching her in his soggy brown wool trench coat and black driving cap. Outside the world was so cold and bitter in the Cleveland winter air, but in here, in this tiny bookstore, if only for a moment, she was his. If only he could talk, what would he say? She glanced up- like a deer in the meadow aware of the hunter. Something was out there amongst the shelves of dusty books. She waited a moment for the feeling to pass before returning to the colorful pictures below. She liked colors. They comforted her on these gray days when the stress of making sense of the symbols beside them hurt her imbecilic brain. He watched her laugh and flip through the pages. Who was this beautiful siren that could understand the dark, ironic humor of modern graphic fiction?

(Yes, I'm saying she's a slow person and he's an idiot.)

Of course, I am not mentioning the most important of all the missed connections ever listed on craigslist.com. Yes, it is true. I myself have posted amongst the despaired and hopeless romantics of cyberspace. To the guy with the Patrick Dempsey eyes, we met while we were both working in Mayfield...

Stop laughing. For one, it actually worked. And two, it was during a very long unemployed summer where the thoughts of the day were made up of "What cereal shall I eat today?" "Should I even bother to shower?" and the ever popular "Eh, these clothes don't smell that bad, what's another day?" So, a little excitement that was cheap and accessible was really just something to keep me from jumping off my roof. (Don't worry, said roof is like 15 feet off the ground.)