A missed connection is a type of

personal advertisement A personal advertisement, sometimes called a contact ad, is a form of classified advertising in which a person seeks to find another person for friendship, romance, marriage, or sexual activity. In British English, it is commonly known as an adv ...

which arises after two people meet but are too shy or otherwise unable to exchange contact details. The "Missed Connections" section of

Craigslist Craigslist (stylized as craigslist) is an American classified advertisements website with sections devoted to jobs, housing, for sale, items wanted, services, community service, Gig worker, gigs, résumés, and discussion forums. Craig Newmark ...

gets thousands of ads of this type every month in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

, and

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

. The feature was started by

Jim Buckmaster Jim Buckmaster (born August 14, 1962) is an American computer programmer who has been the CEO of Craigslist since 2000. Early life Buckmaster was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He graduated with a bachelor's from Virginia Tech and attended medica ...

, Craigslist's CEO, after he noticed a common type of posting in their personal ads, which he characterized as "you-smiled-at-me-on-the-subway-platform". He sees the format as addressing a common human need and being ideal for romantic comedy, "Missed Connections give people that second chance...They represent persistence in the face of long odds, which definitely adds to their artistic appeal." A variety of such artistic works have been developed including illustrations, movies, plays, poetry and songs. Other major cities have similar columns in Craigslist and their own local media. London's ''

Metro Metro, short for metropolitan, may refer to: Geography * Metro (city), a city in Indonesia * A metropolitan area, the populated region including and surrounding an urban center Public transport * Rapid transit, a passenger railway in an urba ...

'' newspaper has a "Rush-hour Crush" column for commuters who exchange glances but nothing more. Many connections are re-established and couples have become married in this way, such as "tall rugby player" and "beautiful lady in the red dress with long brown curly hair". Various websites like

Gumtree Gumtree.com, known as Gumtree, is a British-based online classified advertisement and community website based at Hotham House, Richmond, London. Classified ads are either free or paid for depending on the product category and the geographical m ...

also offer the possibility of reconnecting with missed connections.

Distribution

The nature and location of missed connections have been analyzed. Across the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

in 2013, the breakdown by gender was: * 59% Man seeking woman * 27% Man seeking man * 13% Woman seeking man * 1% Woman seeking woman In the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though ...

, the most common location was public transportation. In the

Pacific Southwest The Pacific Southwest is a region of the United States. In its broadest definition, it encompasses five states: California, Arizona, Hawaii, Utah, and part of Nevada. The region is one of cultural diversity seen all over. Several major urban area ...

, it was the gym. In the

Northeastern United States The Northeastern United States, also referred to as the Northeast, the East Coast, or the American Northeast, is a geographic region of the United States. It is located on the Atlantic coast of North America, with Canada to its north, the Southe ...

, it was the subway and train. In the

Midwestern United States The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of the United States. I ...

, it was the supermarket. In

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

and the Gulf Coast region, it was

Walmart Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores from the United States, headquarter ...

Implementation

The online format for this on Craigslist scrolls so that postings disappear after 45 days. This gives a second possibility of loss as the posting might not be seen in time to reunite the couple. Mobile phone apps such as

Grindr Grindr () is a location-based social networking and online dating application targeted towards members of the gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer community. It was one of the first geosocial apps for gay men when it launched in March 2009 an ...

or Spotted have been created which facilitate hook-ups between strangers immediately, though these require location data. Protocols for facilitating such encounters more safely have been proposed.

Art, comedy, movies, plays and poems

The topic has been used as a theme by artists and authors. The

New York Transit Museum The New York Transit Museum (also called the NYC Transit Museum) is a museum that displays historical artifacts of the New York City Subway, bus, and commuter rail systems in the greater New York City metropolitan region. The main museum is loc ...

held a special exhibition of such work on

Valentine's Day Valentine's Day, also called Saint Valentine's Day or the Feast of Saint Valentine, is celebrated annually on February 14. It originated as a Christian feast day honoring one or two early Christian martyrs named Saint Valentine and, throu ...

in 2011. Other artistic uses of the theme include ''Missed Connections NY,'' a theatrical presentation of thirteen

vignette Vignette may refer to: * Vignette (entertainment), a sketch in a sketch comedy * Vignette (graphic design), decorative designs in books (originally in the form of leaves and vines) to separate sections or chapters * Vignette (literature), short, i ...

s and comic songs performed by the

Upright Citizens Brigade The Upright Citizens Brigade is an improvisational and sketch comedy group that emerged from Chicago's ImprovOlympic in 1990. The original incarnation of the group consisted of Matt Besser, Amy Poehler, Ian Roberts, Matt Walsh, Adam McKay, Ri ...

and the long-running '' Missed Connections: An Exploration into the Online Postings of Desperate Romantics''. One movie was named after the Craigslist feature, ''Missed Connections''. It starred

Sting Sting may refer to: * Stinger or sting, a structure of an animal to inject venom, or the injury produced by a stinger * Irritating hairs or prickles of a stinging plant, or the plant itself Fictional characters and entities * Sting (Middle-eart ...

's daughter, Mickey Sumner, and opened at the

Savannah A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the Canopy (forest), canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to rea ...

Film Festival in 2012. "Missed Connections," a live, interactive play with magic, conceived for virtual experience, co-written by Jon Tai & Alex Gruhin, performed by magician Jon Tai, and directed and produced by Alex Gruhin, ran from February 2-February 28, 2021 at Chicago's MacArthur and multi-Jeff award winning

A Red Orchid Theatre A Red Orchid Theatre is an Equity theatre company located in the Old Town district of Chicago, founded in 1993 by Michael Shannon, Guy Van Swearingen IV, and Lawrence Grimm. Kirsten Fitzgerald, a long-time ensemble member, has helmed the company ...

, during the Coronavirus pandemic. The show then received a virtual transfer to

59E59 Theaters 59E59 Theaters is a curated rental venue located in New York City that consists of three theater spaces or stages. It shows both off-Broadway (in Theater A) and off-off-Broadway plays (in Theaters B and C). The complex is owned and operated by ...

off-Broadway in May 2021, as part of a unique co-presentation with A Red Orchid, Kansas City's Oddly Correct Coffee and

John Wesley Harding (singer) Wesley Stace (born 22 October 1965) is an English folk/pop singer-songwriter and author, who has used the stage name John Wesley Harding. Under his legal name, he has written four novels. He is also an occasional university teacher and the cur ...

/ Wesley Stace's Cabinet of Wonders. The show, which recouped its investment in less than one week of performances off-Broadway continues to perform virtually, presented by other theater companies across the USA and around the world. The play, a magician’s cosmic love story inspired by the work of

Haruki Murakami is a Japanese writer. His novels, essays, and short stories have been bestsellers in Japan and internationally, with his work translated into 50 languages and having sold millions of copies outside Japan. He has received numerous awards for his ...

Marshall McLuhan Herbert Marshall McLuhan (July 21, 1911 – December 31, 1980) was a Canadian philosopher whose work is among the cornerstones of the study of media theory. He studied at the University of Manitoba and the University of Cambridge. He began his ...

and

Derren Brown Derren Brown (born 27 February 1971) is an English mentalist, illusionist, painter, and author. He began performing in 1992, making his television debut with ''Derren Brown: Mind Control'' in 2000, and has since produced several more shows fo ...

, takes 25 audience members on a roundtrip voyage to the stars in search of the invisible thread that connects them all. It received rave reviews from

Chris Jones (drama critic) Christopher Nigel Jones (born September 10, 1963) is a British-American journalist and academic. He is the chief theater critic and Sunday culture columnist of the ''Chicago Tribune''. Since 2014, he has also served as director of the Eugene O ...

at the

Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television ar ...

and Catey Sullivan at the

Chicago Sun-Times The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the ''Chicago T ...

(3.5/4 stars). Country musician Ashley McBryde’s concept album Ashley McBryde Presents: Lindeville features a song about Missed Connections “The Missed Connection Section of the Lindeville Gazette.”

Pre digital antecedents

Just as "lonely hearts" personal advertisements existed in printed newspapers long before the invention of the internet, so too did "missed connections". The earliest known such advert, at the time called a "Once seen" ad, appeared in

The Tatler ''Tatler'' is a British magazine published by Condé Nast Publications focusing on fashion and lifestyle, as well as coverage of high society and politics. It is targeted towards the British upper-middle class and upper class, and those interes ...

in 1709. An early example of such a once seen ad was placed by a Samuel Reeves, and read "A gentleman who, on the twentieth instant, had the honour to conduct a lady out of boat at Whitehall Stairs, desires to know where he may wait on her to diclose a matter of concern."

References

Citations

Sources

* * *{{citation , title=I Saw You: Comics Inspired by Real-Life Missed Connections , first=Julia , last=Wertz , publisher=Crown Publishing Group , year=2009 , isbn=9780307452610

External links

Missed connections
— Craigslist for the San Francisco Bay area
Missed connections
— App to find your missed connections based on GPS
Missed connections
- App the reconnects you to your missed connection using technology from 2020 Dating Journalism Love Romance Craigslist