Craigslist No Longer Just For Serial Killers, Now For Romance, Too
By Dana Daniels
If there’s anything to remind you how utterly alone you really are, it’s the holiday season. But I’ll admit that my seemingly eternal solitude is at least partially my fault. I’ve come to the conclusion that my feminine charm and witty banter has alienated every decent OkCupid member on this island. And as a person who often forgets how to do the words thing in the presence of most attractive strangers, the method of flirting I have developed — that which mostly involves making “What’s the deal with airplane food? Amirite?” jokes — is proving to be surprisingly ineffective.
This is where Craigslist’s Missed Connections comes in. Although Craigslist is most commonly associated with sad middle-aged men and their TV dinners, prostitutes who “just want to party,” and serial killers, the personals section really has so much more to offer. For New Yorkers who just didn’t get that phone number, were too shy to say “hello” on the F train, or would very much like to watch someone masturbate in the Container Store again, Missed Connections is the light at the end of a very lonely tunnel.
The Missing Encounters section has existed since I was just a little tyke asking my parents’ permission to play Neopets, but I have never thought of its postings to be anything more than something fun to read after one or six glasses of wine. However, a recent heartwarming post from an NYU alum and the handful of success stories out there are making me reconsider the idea that the institution exists only to keep hope alive for sad, desperate romantics. In fact, maybe there’s something to this whole thing — even for the city’s young people.
“I just love Craigslist and reading some of the ridiculous things people post, but [when]I saw the headline that I knew was meant for me, I was shocked. I felt like I was in a Kate Hudson movie,” Steinhardt junior Katy Miller said of her reaction to discovering that she was the subject of a Missed Encounters post. “Naturally I had to [respond]. He messaged me back saying that he didn’t think in his wildest dreams I would see [his post], but we exchanged numbers and I guess we have a date.”
In an age where you’re deemed to be abnormal if you’re not constantly connected to the interwebs, the stigma of meeting your next boo-thang online seems to be fading for nearly every website except Craigslist. Maybe it’s time that we stop letting the bad — Lord knows that it’s out there — stop the good from becoming something great.
It’s too soon to say whether Miller’s budding romance can one day be deemed a Missed Connections success story. As for me, I think its time to start making much more sultry eye contact with strangers when I ride the subway. Who knows? Maybe in 50 years I’ll be able to tell my grandchildren that their grandpappy have Craigslist to thank for our eternal romance.
PS: If you’re a freshman anthropology major named Charlie, there’s someone out there looking for you.
