How to turn potential regret into potential sweat
Missed connection posts are a modern day phenomenon; a compact eight second rollercoaster that is equal parts love, loss, regret and hilarity.
Reading them is like having someone pull at your heartstrings, spit in your face and tug at your loins.
It’s cheap courtship that can provide us with the sense that fate is a possibility and does still exist out there. We believe that three seconds of eye contact (meditated or not) can translate into a lifelong romance. Or, if you’re into this sort of thing, a three minute bang.
Wanna become the subject of a missed connection? It’s easy:
Wander around a university for three straight years, wearing a brightly colored petticoat and rocking a massive mane of dreads. Years later you’ll be approached in a Calgary bar by a middle-aged balding man who will ask if you used to attend the U of S and had a class on Thursday nights in the Murray Building.
Work a minimum wage job that serves up vices – booze, coffee, mini golf. And while being completely oblivious as you go about your daily tasks, there will be one person obsessing over the way you clear a table/fill out a scorecard.
Ride the bus and/or walk anywhere with headphones on. And brace yourself for being advanced upon by a stranger if you take off your headphones, even for a second.
Read a book in public.
Be a hot metal militia mom.
Love someone 30 years ago.
Or use a gym.
Regardless, every moment you choose to be alive and participate in public activities, your missed connection potential is constantly multiplying. All you gotta do, apparently, is get stoned and ride the subway.
James Blunt felt it.
You are beautiful! So get out there.
Ominocity caught up with a local redheaded sweetheart – sorry guys, no names used here, she’s currently connected – to ask about a recent missed connection written in her favour.
Ominocity: How did you discover there was a missed connection floating around the internet about you?
Miss Connection: A friend of mine texted me. She was scouring the missed connections looking for one about herself. She’s a bit of a cat lady like that. There was one describing a girl with red hair and a blue coat. ‘Is this you?’ she asked.
OM: Were your creeped the fuck out?
MC: To be honest I was kinda flattered. It’s probably something I would do if I was a shy awkward boy and I saw someone I wanted to talk to, but didn’t have the balls to approach. It was the first time I had heard of local missed connections, so I was more fascinated that they actually existed outside of movies.
OM: Do you remember what was posted?
MC: Something along the lines of: ‘you had red hair and a blue coat and I was wearing a plaid shirt. You looked my way and I thought maybe there was something there. We were in Value Village. You smiled.’
OM: Do you recall what happened IRL?
MC: I remember looking at a guy in a plaid shirt. I don’t remember what he looked like. I probably wouldn’t recognize him in public. I was checking out the plaid shirt, the old check-out-a-cute-guy-in-plaid-shirt-bit, to discover not a cute guy.
OM: Was there a connection, or was it a misunderstanding/miscalculation on eye contact?
MC: Miscalculation of eye contact! He caught me looking at him and out of awkwardness I smiled. It’s what I do whenever I get caught looking at a stranger.
OM: Did you respond to the post?
MC: Yes. I told him I was looking at his shirt because I thought it was the one I had wanted to buy the previous time I was there. I told him I was in a relationship but none the less flattered. Obviously.
OM: What came of it?
MC: Nothing, haha.
OM: Have you gone back and checked to see if there were anymore written about you?
MC: I don’t read them regularly anymore. I did for awhile. They are pretty enticing at first, but you get kinda bored after awhile. There were so many fake ones. People would read them and make fun of each other. It was kinda sad, really. I have commitment issues. So I gave up on them pretty quick.
OM: Did you ever consider the possibility beforehand that you would ever be the a subject of a missed connection?
MC: No. Never. I had no idea there were even a local thing. I think I am more noticeable with bright red hair, but I didn’t even consider there to be a missed connection out there about me.
OM: Anything you want to say to the guy who wrote the missed connection about you?
MC: To the man who wrote it. Just kidding. I have nothing to say to him.
-Contributed by Victoria Allbright
Photo taken from Flickr user “Jonathan Harford” – Creative Commons.