Missed connections

I’m not exactly old enough to remember but a while back I was watching a comedian who referenced “missed connections” as the preface for his next joke. I was intrigued by the punchline so I decided to look into it more. When I researched and when I say researched I literally just typed it into google I got a lot of hits. The most relevant alluded to people on craigslist posting about how they saw someone or met someone that they were interested in, but maybe didn’t have the time, or were too shy to get the person’s information. I mean nowadays just from a name and a little determination you can find someone on some form of social media, so it isn’t as urgent for us to push for it from the actual person. With all that being said I still don’t think that I understood why, if you were so interested enough to post online for everybody to see why not seize the moment when you were in front of them. I know that is easier said than done though, but still. Though recently I saw one that interested me. It was a man not to much older than me but it wasn’t the typical situation I had seen with the other posts. It wasn’t that he saw her on a subway or in the cereal aisle of a store. He had seen her dancing at a bar, and I know most people would be quick to turn up their nose or talk about how they would never want to meet the person they could spend their lives with in an environment like that, because most people don’t need it spelled out for them, why we go to bars or clubs that is. But what caught my attention was how the man described the woman. “ I looked up and although I was intoxicated seeing as it was my second bar of the night, I was instantly sober. She had the kind of beauty that was extremely subtle and maybe it was because she was so unaware of the effect she had on the rest of the room.” He also said that he didn’t believe in love at first sight per say but he did believe in seeing someone and getting the feeling that you have to know more about them. “ I decided I had to walk up to her, no matter the situation, because if I didn’t, thinking about what I would have said would keep me up many more nights than if I had just gotten rejected outright. Even though it was dark I was instantly taken by her. She was open in a weird way that I couldn’t quite place at the moment. She also informed me that she wasn’t much of a dancer but yet was on the floor with everybody else. I danced with her and it was more rom-com than any movie I’d ever seen. She was funny and the conversation flowed effortlessly”. See, when I had gotten to this point I checked the category of what I was reading again because I definitely didn’t seem like the other “missed connections” that I had read. Barring this I continued on “ we finally got the chance to sit down and again she was more open then most telling me about being a nurse and how she was from Chapel Hill with a parent from Oak park Michigan. Again I was surprised by her openness, but then something hit me. She had said that she might not remember everything that I was telling her about my life and it made me realize that she was under the impression that I would never talk to her let alone see her again after tonight.” So it made sense that she would be open with someone that she never was going to come into contact with again. That wasn’t my impression though I think that life is what happens when you’re busy making plans, and if you assume that your life won’t happen to you at any moment then you won’t be ready when it inevitably does.” So when I got to this part I assumed that the man left right then and maybe regretted leaving and the post was a last ditch effort to reach out to a girl that he missed but barely knew. Of course I was wrong. “ Maybe it was the romantic in me but something told me that there was a part of her that felt the same thing that I did. That the fluidity in our conversations, the way we were able to carry on in the midst of the people and the music meant something different. Not like another random rendezvous at a bar like most people expect when they go out. When it was time to leave I left with her and her friends although she didn’t exactly ask she also wasn’t pushing me away. So I went and again it was reminiscent of “ 500 days of summer” in the way that we walked along the sidewalk talking and joking in the mindless way that you only find scripted in the movies.” Now, as emotionally invested as I was, I had to know how it ended, because right now it seems like they’re probably still holed up in a bed or on a couch telling each other everything about themselves. Though this obviously couldn’t be the case because here I was reading about his “missed connection” on the internet. “ When we got to the final bar of the night we already had a level of comfortability that sometimes takes weeks to form, still laughing and joking but nothing farther than that. Until I decided I needed to take a chance, but I just had to wait for my moment. As we sat there another man had taken notice of this beautiful woman who must have thought she was undercover as a nun or something because It didn’t surprise me at all. She then gave me an opening as we sat there. Telling me about how someone was staring and I took the opportunity to suggest we send him a message that she was taken. And I got to kiss her. Now I don’t want to say fireworks but it was nice, no pressure just doing what felt natural.” So by now I’m virtually in tears because I love a happy ending, but the bar at the right side of my screen that indicates how much you have to scroll quickly robbed me of any feelings of finality. “ She started to yawn which in most cases indicates that someone is tired, and she said as much and that she was going to go home. Of course the only reason I was even out this late was because I wanted to spend more time with her so I said I was leaving too. As I walked out I saw her get into the elevator that exited out to the street. As I stopped at the door I saw that it was just us. And I couldn’t help but take the moment to kiss her again, like I had seen so many times in movies and tv shows and for what felt like hours had only lasted a few seconds because the door opened one floor below where we had gotten on.” Now at this point I don’t want to finish because this dude was really breaking my heart, but obviously I had too. “ When the elevator reached the bottom floor I didn’t know what was going to happen, I mean at 4 a.m I didn’t necessarily have a destination seeing as I was miles away from where I lived. I decided to walk her home because It was late and you never know who’s outside at night. As we walked I realized that the night was coming to a close so I attempted to get her phone number. I was successful, although reluctantly, but I also knew I didn’t want to try to go home with her because it wasn’t about that for me. I hailed a taxi and of course offered it to her which she declined, but there was something on her face that told me that she didn’t want the night to end at least half as much as me but it had too eventually.” Now I don’t think that anybody is owed anything but I do think that people have a right to feel what they feel. I think the reason this one stuck out so much to me was because it was different, two people put themselves out there more than most and they rode it until the end. I just don’t think that it ended when the night did, and hopefully for him it didn’t. “ I don’t say this because I’m obsessive or possessive and it most definitely could have been one sided. But I do think that I need to show that you weren’t just someone that I met in a bar, even though it might be a little thing I find that sometimes they make all the difference.