Are you that person I saw that one time in that place?

December 6, 2006 1:00 PM

Has Craigslist's missed connections board (or similar) ever actually worked for anyone?

The tiny probability just boggles my mind....

posted by raf to Computers & Internet (20 answers total)

well i dont know if it's worked in that, two people got together and lived happily ever after, but i've heard of several times when people i know recognized themselves in one. just a few months ago, i was at a baseball game with my cousin and there was this incredibly annoying guy sitting behind us the whole time. then a few nights later, my roommate pointed out to me that he had posted a missed connection about how my cousin was the most beautiful girl in the world and he'd love to meet up with her, etc. Well, she definitely did NOT get in touch with him, but we did get a good laugh out of the whole thing.
posted by silverstatue at 1:09 PM on December 6, 2006 [1 favorite]

Best answer: My boyfriend a couple of years ago became absolutly obsessed with a girl he had met at the laundramat a little bit before dating me. We had been together a little over a year, when we broke up. I was visiting him to pick up some stuff (get laid) and I noticed the confirmation of payment for one of those ads lin an local alternative newsletter saying on his desk. Sure enough, she remembered him. Met once! at the laundramat! a year ago! They even dated for a while, and she ended up moving into his place when he left town. Weird.
posted by stormygrey at 1:10 PM on December 6, 2006 [1 favorite]

Best answer: An ex of mine exchanged glances with a woman on the subway once, posted a Missed Connection on craigslist, got a response from her, and they got married about a year ago.
posted by jesourie at 1:10 PM on December 6, 2006 [1 favorite]

I suppose it depends on the size of the city.
I saw a post about myself on it once, but Buffalo is a small city.
But then, I didn't email them. So that may not count.
posted by Kellydamnit at 1:12 PM on December 6, 2006

Best answer: Well, you may be be right about the "tiny probability" of it working, but it did for two friends of mine.

My friend Jane was shopping at Borders about a year ago, and had a cute guy as her cashier. They chatted a bit and then she left as one usually does after buying something from a store. A few day later, on a whim, she posted a missed connection on Craig's List. A few days later, after being alerted by one of his friends, Jane was contacted by a guy named Mike who thought she was describing him. They met up and sure enough it was the right person. They've been together for about a year now.

I suspect it worked in the case because: a) Jane is a very good, experienced writer and was probably pretty eloquent in describing the guy she was looking for so even Mike's friend who first saw the post could read it and tell it was him, and b) their initial connection happened in a very specific place and with a specific role -- ie, he was a cashier at the Borders in downtown Boston, rather than just being a guy she passed on the street while jogging.

So yeah, it works.
posted by jk252b at 1:14 PM on December 6, 2006

Craigslist is collecting success stories here Anyone know what they're doing with their collection?
posted by Xalf at 1:26 PM on December 6, 2006

My friend who was living in SF at the time met a guy at a party, and then her roommate saw that he was trying to find her on Craigslist. I went to their wedding in June.
posted by rmless at 1:28 PM on December 6, 2006

Best answer: This isn't exactly what you asked for, but Portland's Willamette Week had (has?) a Chance Meetings section. I read it religiously when I was single and once saw two ads that were clearly about each other. The editors had thoughtfully placed them next together.

Example:
"Me, cute blond girl in SciFi section at Powells on 1/13, wearing purple skirt. You, rugged with beard, wearing Carhartts."

"1/13, Powell's. You were wearing a purple miniskirt and had short blond hair. Me: construction guy with beard, wants to see you again!"
posted by peep at 1:31 PM on December 6, 2006 [7 favorites]

yes.
posted by krautland at 1:45 PM on December 6, 2006 [1 favorite]

I had one a few months ago in Minneapolis--from a guy who'd hit on me while my boyfriend was in the bathroom. I wrote him back out of curiousity and he turned out to be a nice enough guy. I read the MCs every day but have never posted one, so it was kind of fun to recognize myself.
posted by hamster at 3:15 PM on December 6, 2006

Once I left a mash note for a semi-famous author on the NY Missed Connections and somebody with his (supposed) email address emailed me. He didn't want to go to the movies with me, though.
posted by footnote at 3:41 PM on December 6, 2006

The probability is not that miniscule simply because there are people that regularly read it and recognize friends that other people are trying to find. I remember last year where some dude posted a missed connection for a friend that I brought to a party (& he described her as the one that came with that funny drunk guy [=me]). At least three women I know emailed me asking me to forward the post to her.

btw, she didn't respond.
posted by special-k at 4:00 PM on December 6, 2006

Best answer: A woman I work with here in Brooklyn ended up dating a guy for a long time after they hooked up through a Craigslist Missed Connection.
posted by etc. at 4:08 PM on December 6, 2006

Best answer: It definitely works. I met a few people by posting missed connections. Nothing serious came of any of them though.

I also dated someone who wore unusual clothes to increase her chances of finding herself mentioned on CLMC. That relationship didn't last long.
posted by spindling at 4:26 PM on December 6, 2006

Best answer: A friend of my girlfriend's met and subsequently married someone she saw on the subway (in a major US city, no less). I'd imagine that quite a few people in the young, single, and urban-dwelling demographic read Missed Connections, so it doesn't seem that unlikely to me that some of them would get together.
posted by ssg at 4:42 PM on December 6, 2006

Best answer: I made a documentary about how people met and two of the people I interviewed at random met through a missed connections ad in the newspaper.

hint: if you want to make it on the SF bay area CL missed connections all your have to do is look super sexy and then go shopping at Berkeley Bowl. This has been confirmed by my own experiments.
posted by Infernarl at 6:43 PM on December 6, 2006

I was two for two while in San Francisco, much to my amazement, but I think it helped that in each case I knew the person's first name.

Now that I'm in Vancouver I check out the MC board every now and then but I think it doesn't have nearly the level of penetration as in SF, or at least not as much traffic. I was amazed at how pretty much everyone in SF seems to be reading Craigslist regularly.
posted by PercussivePaul at 7:04 PM on December 6, 2006

Best answer: I didn't get a date, but I did get a MC posting from the guy who saw me drop my keys on the BART tracks as I was stepping on the train and the doors were closing. He asked the station agent to get them for me, and when I got back from work, they were waiting for me at the station. He left a note on CL that a coworker who had heard me tell my story of woe read, and she had me read it. So that worked! No romance, sorry.
posted by cacahuete at 7:22 PM on December 6, 2006

It was once my goal in life to end up mentioned as a missed connection. I can saw from personal experience that two people I know where mentioned on missed connections, but they never ended up hooking up with the person who posted it.
posted by drezdn at 8:05 AM on December 7, 2006

i've seen myself "sighted" in my city's local arts paper twice. both times i knew for sure it was me- the identifying details were extremely specific- in one case it was my actual name and in both cases, the ad explicitly named the place i worked and the job i was doing when the person spotted me. in both cases i remembered the dude in question and the moment we made contact. i tried to respond to the first one, but it was in the days before internet access, so the phone-in system didn't work and that was that. in the second case i wasn't into the guy so i never responded.

i think these ads can work if both people are in the same demographic- in my case, all three parties work in the arts, so logically, we read that specific paper. an old friend is marrying a guy she met on a craigslist personal ad. there are a lot of relatively net-savvy, community-minded hipsters out there-and a lot of them are bored enough at work to be addicted to craigslist. law of averages says craigslist should hook some of them up once in a while, so if the missed connection was really dazzling, i'd say it's worth the try.
posted by twistofrhyme at 11:06 AM on December 7, 2006