Missed Connections Analyzed

November 12, 2015 7:42 AM

I analyzed 10,000 Craigslist missed connections. Here's what I learned.

In case you missed them, previous missed connections posts:

Passive aggressive missed connections

Missed connections illustrated

Missed connections by state

Missed connections comics

Kizmeet

posted by glaucon (35 comments total)

Missed connection: You posted the sweetest erudite bit of snark. I could have snarked back and started a glorious flame war but I wimped out. Please snark at me again, think where we could go on MiFi.
posted by sammyo at 7:59 AM on November 12, 2015 [10 favorites]

An interesting observation: "[W]women’s posts, regardless of whom they’re directed at or what city they’re in, are lengthier. Men looking for men write the briefest messages, with straight men writing slightly more verbose ones; straight women write more still. Women looking for other women seem to write the most." (Couple that with this, from Nick Paumgarten, in a slightly longer quote from his New Yorker piece: "Demonstrating the ability, and the inclination, to write well is a rough equivalent to showing up in a black Mercedes. And yet a sentiment I heard again and again, from women who instinctively prized nothing so much as a well-written profile, was that, as rare as it may be, “good writing is only a sign of good writing.” Graceful prose does not a gentleman make.")

But (related) it sometimes makes for good reading: "The hilariously self-loathing personals ads of the ‘London Review of Books.’"
posted by MonkeyToes at 8:17 AM on November 12, 2015 [5 favorites]

In the Men Seeking Men side of the "Most commonly used phrases in missed connections posts" graphic, there are two different-sized circles for "would love".
posted by Ennis Tennyone at 8:21 AM on November 12, 2015

And yet a sentiment I heard again and again, from women who instinctively prized nothing so much as a well-written profile, was that, as rare as it may be, “good writing is only a sign of good writing.” Graceful prose does not a gentleman make."

On the flip side of this are straight dudes' OKC profiles (excuse any inaccuracies, I've been off the site for a while... three guesses why...) that are something like:

Self-description: empty
Favorite TV shows, movies, music, food...: "good rock music"
What do people first notice about you? empty
What six things could you not live without? "food, my phone"
Who should message you? "if you feel like we might be soulmates after reading this"
posted by fraula at 8:27 AM on November 12, 2015 [25 favorites]

Self-description: empty
Favorite TV shows, movies, music, food...: "good rock music"
What do people first notice about you? empty
What six things could you not live without? "food, my phone"
Who should message you? "if you feel like we might be soulmates after reading this"

"Are you as empty as I am? Message me."
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 8:30 AM on November 12, 2015 [5 favorites]

originally i thought the idea of MCs at best juvenile; at worst creepy.
i mean, can't a woman just sit in a public spot and just be without having to be subject to someone else's fantasies, no matter how romantic or honourable they might be?

i'm sure there are plenty of men and women alike who might be amused at the thought of being an object of affection from a stranger, but I don't think we as a society are ready to promote a public forum for such endeavours, considering how we treat women today.

but then I thought, MCs is not the same thing as skywriting or paying for a billboard ad, or serenading someone by their window, is it?

And maybe some hopeless romantics just need to tell the world that they are in love (as delusional as their idea of love might be).

I don't know. I still am firmly on the side of the women, and their right to privacy and their right to be themselves and not be objects 24 hours a day, but I guess I have a wee bit more empathy with their suitors who have probably watched too many movies. I still don't condone it though.
posted by bitteroldman at 8:34 AM on November 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

I peruse the M4F missed connections for fun (also there's this one guy that i see that I hope will post on there ha) and a lot of guys will just say "we looked at each other" and that's it.

I posted on missed connections (F4M) once, but I just got dick picks :( :( :(
posted by littlesq at 8:41 AM on November 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

And sometimes it's a place to stumble across a nice piece of writing.
(Internet Archive page - the original is 404'ed.)

"I saw you on the Manhattan-bound Brooklyn Q train.
I was wearing a blue-striped t-shirt and a pair of maroon pants. You were wearing a vintage red skirt and a smart white blouse. We both wore glasses. I guess we still do."
posted by Zack_Replica at 9:09 AM on November 12, 2015 [11 favorites]

The "first thing people notice about you" field is deprecated. New OKC users do not have the option to fill it out. People thinking it wasn't filled out due to laziness fills me with anxiety to no end.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 9:10 AM on November 12, 2015 [8 favorites]

originally i thought the idea of MCs at best juvenile; at worst creepy.

Somewhere Hammer sheds a single tear...
posted by Sangermaine at 9:22 AM on November 12, 2015 [6 favorites]

Whenever I would check out the local m4m missed connections page it seemed that 80% of the posts were from the same person. Not similar - I mean literally one person posting many times per day.
posted by kanewai at 9:27 AM on November 12, 2015

While I have been married for more than nine years, it makes me sad that I never inspired a missed connection back in the day.
posted by drezdn at 9:29 AM on November 12, 2015 [3 favorites]

Somebody once posted a missed connection to my son's beard.

He has this big, lush, magnificent beard, and one of his friends recognized it in missed connections and showed him the post. It was just a no strings attached compliment and a "word to your beard" kind of thing.
posted by ernielundquist at 9:30 AM on November 12, 2015 [21 favorites]

I posted on missed connections (F4M) once, but I just got dick picks :( :( :(

I'm unable to search for it at work, but back in... 2002 or 2003? when I was unemployed, I decided for SCIENCE! to survey Missed Connections by posting (a) "I am a woman, let me see your dick"* and (b) "I am a man, lemme see your man-chest" and seeing which one got more responses including photos. The former got a LOT more, even though (naively?) I thought there was a much lower mental barrier to sharing above-the-waist pictures. The survey-results post landed in best-of-craigslist, which is about as close to a claim to fame as I'd want, given the topic.

*The only specific response I remember was "u r a dude," which is correct although it didn't count for the survey.
posted by psoas at 9:35 AM on November 12, 2015 [2 favorites]

How many people actually check missed connections? When I was single, If I had met someone, felt we had a contact and then never got their information, I would chalk it up to New York, be a touch sad and go about my day. I never would have thought to even look at Craigslist. I'd really like to see how many people actually are reconnected.

Also, does anyone think that this sort of thing happened more when these were in newspapers and people actually read the paper?
posted by Hactar at 9:45 AM on November 12, 2015

One baby-sized condom. Never used.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 9:47 AM on November 12, 2015 [6 favorites]

I met someone by posting on Craigslist Missed Connections. It was more than just a date or two. Now you all have anecdotal proof of the "Well this guy who posts on a forum I frequent" variety; it can happen.
posted by meinvt at 10:14 AM on November 12, 2015 [2 favorites]

> it makes me sad that I never inspired a missed connection back in the day.

...that you know of.
posted by ardgedee at 10:23 AM on November 12, 2015 [3 favorites]

>I mean literally one person posting many times per day.

That seems to be the norm for the vast majority of CL personals posts in many cities. CL personals is like a lightening rod now for all sorts of mental illnesses.
posted by AGameOfMoans at 10:32 AM on November 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

This is cool, but it'd be nice if the charts were easier to read. For one, the post time vs. gender charts are impossible to compare because they aren't normalized for total post volume and the animation when you switch between them keeps me from doing it in my head...
posted by Known Weasel at 10:41 AM on November 12, 2015

> it makes me sad that I never inspired a missed connection back in the day

how do you know you didn't miss the missed connection?
posted by kokaku at 10:46 AM on November 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

sammyo: "Missed connection: You posted the sweetest erudite bit of snark. I could have snarked back and started a glorious flame war but I wimped out. Please snark at me again, think where we could go on MiFi."

Like I would ever contact anyone who couldn't spell/pronounce simple words correctly.
posted by Samizdata at 11:13 AM on November 12, 2015

A recent study replication suggested that while women could detect flirtation with relative accuracy, men tended to label all interactions with women as, “She wants me.”

Ah, maybe that's my problem - who knows how many flirting attempts by women* I've blindly ignored because I invariably assume up front that everything is just normal social interaction and she couldn't possibly be interested in me.

*it's entirely possible that that number is zero
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:29 AM on November 12, 2015 [5 favorites]

You looked stunning in blue with yellow accents. I Said "MeeFie," You said "MehFee," forgot to get your number.
posted by Devils Rancher at 11:37 AM on November 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

I have filed three missed connections in my life.

- to the woman I met at the Halloween Party in 2003, when I was working (success!).
- to the amazing burrito stand table mate in a silver shirt and tie in the SF Panhandle (success!)
- to the owner of the MN car with plates MUAD-DIB, for the joy they brought to my life by existing.

As far as I know, I have never been the subject :/
posted by gregglind at 12:23 PM on November 12, 2015 [2 favorites]

Before Craigslist when you had to use the local alt-weekly to send a missed connection, I had a friend who was obsessed with someone writing her a missed connection. One day she finds one with the right day and time, right location, the outfit is close enough, but the hair color was wrong. The missed connection was describing her best friend who had been sitting next to her. So the closest she ever came was to have a near-missed connection.
posted by peeedro at 12:41 PM on November 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

"I’ve yet to hear any firsthand stories of missed connections that have resulted in anything more than a date or two before the romance petered out."

I found love via missed connection (I was the writer.) We met at a used clothing store where I worked in college and exchanged conversation for a few minutes as I rang him up. I was charmed, but it wasn't a situation that allowed for further interaction. I don't remember writing the ad, or the content of what I wrote. Missed connections were really the rage in the town we lived in at the time and many people checked Craigslist daily to see if they or someone they knew was the subject of one.

He didn't see it (nor would he ever in a million years have thought to look,) but his ex-girlfriend did. She tipped him off, he replied, I felt cold shock that it had actually worked, and we went on a date. Later, we admitted to each other that we were both a little apprehensive that this could have been a weird situation, but it worked out. Together seven years, now married. A friend of ours also happens to be engaged to her missed connection man, so I guess all of this is to say: it happens!
posted by doloresrio at 1:39 PM on November 12, 2015 [26 favorites]

I think I'm a fundamentally pessimistic person, to my detriment. I can not imagine firing a missed connection into the void and thinking the other person would ever see it.
posted by RustyBrooks at 1:45 PM on November 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

i mean, can't a woman just sit in a public spot and just be without having to be subject to someone else's fantasies, no matter how romantic or honorable they might be?

No, I'm normally pretty strongly on the social justice side of things, but policing people's thoughts and fantasies about other people in public is too far. If a person respects your social boundaries and isn't being disruptive (even if it's just creepy staring) they ought to be able to think whatever they like about you. Being subject to the thoughts of other people is one of the things you accept when you enter a public space, whether it be the server hating your peculiar food request, the driver behind you livid because you're not going their speed, or the individual finding you physically attractive.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 2:00 PM on November 12, 2015 [5 favorites]

(even if it's just creepy staring)

Er, no, I'd say that falls into the category of overt and disruptive.
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:34 PM on November 12, 2015 [2 favorites]

Oh, yes, I meant creepy staring is not respecting social boundaries. I'm sorry I didn't say that more clearly.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 5:01 PM on November 12, 2015 [2 favorites]

i saw u. want 2 see again.
if yes, go to the same place.
posted by ctmf at 6:54 PM on November 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

I always thought it would be cool to be the subject of a Missed Connection. Alas, as far as I know, it's never happened to me.
posted by SisterHavana at 1:51 AM on November 13, 2015

Excuse me, I have to check something on CL.
posted by Hobgoblin at 6:50 AM on November 13, 2015

I went on a missed connection date with my pizza man. About half a dozen people emailed me the ad when it was posted, but I had already seen it.

He was nice enough but we didn't go on a second date. And it didn't turn into a porno, despite him being my pizza man.
posted by MsDaniB at 8:25 AM on November 14, 2015 [1 favorite]