Missed Connections
I am obscenely drawn to personals, with their strange alphabet filing systems. I like the whole 'I'm holding and B, an M, and a N/S, what have you got to make my hand stronger?' structure. Of course, my favorites are the missed connections, and the most satisfying missed connections are on Craigslist. Because there is no need for newspaperlike word-economy, writers etch in even more of the story, using specifics like "You were eating pie" or "I think I would be good for you" or at least sparing a few extra T's to demonstrate that she thought you were really really hotttttt. The most perverse thing about the ads is that you get very specific locations, for example the Target at Elm and Watts in the dishsoap aisle. Because Craigslist is organized by city, I can click on St. Louis or Columbus and search for places I recognize. Yesterday as I was perusing I noticed one that said something like Katzinger's, Sunday at 2. I was at Katzinger's only hours before! Had we just delayed our meal a few hours I might have spotted a "connection" in real life! It was with this entry that I realized my mission, as vague and impossible as it is... I HAVE to be on location for one of these. A fly on the wall of one person's obsession, to witness the spark that buries him in a pile of silky hair or chokes her with a pair of black eyeglasses. I find this sort of attraction so far removed from my realm of experience that I have to see it for myself. Is there some magnetism between two strangers that is inexplcible, or is it merely a game of wanting what you can't ever have again--a moment in which you saw a certain future happiness for yourself through the lens of another? I have the feeling the answer is yes, and yes, and an extra yes for causes I have neglected to mention. All I know is that I want to witness it for myself, just once. So I know.
posted by April @ 5:10 AM
5 comments
5 Comments:
I've always assumed that these are cases of people taking those harmless little flirts that we all engage in WAAAAAY too seriously.
True Ted, or it could be a way to lure curious folk into a web of stalkerdom. And I say that, mainly because I love to use the following...
Admiral Ackbar: "It's a trap!"
can you count the number of times you've seen it boz?
She probably barely even noticed him and now he's like totally obsessing over every little detail.
Hey, it almost worked out for poor Seymour, but some people just ain't normal.
lso, I don't really 'engage' in those harmless little flirts. Folks will roll their eyes, but if you ever seen me in social action you know that it's either cutting jabs or nothing for new faces.
I do not like the personals directed to waitstaff or clerks as a formerly sought after book nerd I encountered my fair share of admirers (despite the whole neglecting to shower, sans make-up, crankypants persona I project, or perhaps because of?) This is different circumstance completely. If you are working a customer service field you have to be servicable but that doesn't mean you want to service the customer off the clock, nyuk nyuk. (I'll be here all week) But am still intrigued by the others mostly because I want to assemble faces and odors with the pleas for attention. It's because I am a voyeur through and through, I want always to be the fly on the wall passing judgement but invisible to it.
However, if you go to craigslist Columbus you might notice a certain ad that my be directed at a certain blogger. Just saying, I wish all my wants came true so quickly ;)
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