Opinion

Craigslist era is as lonely as ever

(3 votes, average 3.67 out of 5)

Written by Brody Hess
Nov 3, 2010

I am looking over my smoothie into the eyes of a man I’ve just met, making small talk and finding the situation fascinating. I’ve agreed to meet him after reading his sentimental post on the Missed Connections page of Craigslist.com. Although I was not his target, I thought his message was sweet. I wanted to meet the man behind the words.

More than six million individuals have visited Missed Connections. Whether they’re looking for a good laugh or a shot at love, people of all ages and backgrounds frequent the site.

Sometimes it works like it’s supposed to: People find old friends, lost loves or a healthy sense of closure. Some people have even found their spouses through Missed Connections.

Sometimes Missed Connections is used by people who desperately want to be the subject of an ad. They go about seeking eye contact with strangers and then later search the site hoping one of those strangers will be there looking for them.

But some people are less than flattered when they discover they’re the subject of a Missed Connections post. Last year, a Milwaukee area barista was very bothered when a Radio 102.1 personality read a post about her on the air. Her manager told me that following the broadcast there was a stream of strangers visiting the coffee shop, looking for her.

What does all of this say about our society? Playwright Brian Firkus asked this question as he worked on “Missed Connections: The Musical” (slated for the stage in 2011). His show, based on real missed connections from Craigslist, explores the tragic as well as the romantic aspects of the phenomenon.

“(The musical) deals with regret,” Firkus said. “(Missed Connections) is a medium for people to express their dissatisfaction, their loose-ends, that itch they can’t scratch. Wildly dramatic, happy or sad, they are musical theater.”

During his research, Firkus perused Missed Connections regularly. He found a wide variety. Some posters wrote them to themselves, mourning the life they felt disconnected from. Others wrote to their emotionally distant spouses in a plea for the couple to go back to an earlier, happier time. Tugging hardest on the heart strings were the posts to dead girlfriends that revealed the poster holding on to the past or looking for new peace.

People from earlier generations see our public displays of yearning and tragedy as evidence that love has degenerated over the years. But we are now a public society. Social networking sites, blogs and yes, even Craigslist, serve to satisfy our need to communicate our stories.

It’s a sad truth that love is often a trigger for dysfunction. What makes our time different is the ability to anonymously broadcast the personal minutia about our lives that were once discussed only behind closed doors.

And in the end, we find that humans are just as lonely as ever.