Candy and Flowers: Missed Connections

Missed Connections has all the romantic idealism of M4W, M4M, W4M and W4W and all the specific neediness of Casual Encounters. And, to make it even better, the whole thing is grounded bizarrely in the geography of the city. Men don’t seek “women,” in Missed Connections, they seek “beautiful brunette smoking outside Wells Fargo.” People still hone in on ideals, but they hone in on specific ones. Rather than saying, “Vegetarian seeks same,” they try to get the phone number of their favorite cashier at Whole Foods. Rather than seeking a drug-friendly rockabilly girl, they try to track down the woman with the Bettie Page bangs who dropped her stash on the bus.

At the moment, I’m caught up in the drama of a woman named Lynn who is desperately seeking a guy she met on New Year’s Eve. Apparently, Nathan really swept her off her feet, but she didn’t get his number and now she’s kicking herself. I have seen Lynn looking in the Chronicle’s Shots in the Dark, too. (You can read the Missed Connection right here, if you’re so inclined. I mean, help a sister out.)

Lynn’s tale of woe is a bit extreme, but if there’s some grand lesson to take away from Missed Connections, I think it has to do with just asking for the goddamn number. I mean, we all spend time chatting up people only to be crippled by neurosis. What if he has a girlfriend? What if she doesn’t like girls? What if he’s asexual? Who cares. Worst case scenario: you go for broke while you’re ordering your morning buzz, then don’t get the phone number. Maybe ordering your decaf skim double latte (low foam) is slightly more embarrassing than usual, but you’ll get over it. The odds of tracking down your coffee shop dreamboat after the fact are pretty slim, unless you know, she has a Missed Connections addiction — not that I’m suggesting anything.