Beauty on the N train – m4w (Queens)
I saw you across the N train on Thursday afternoon haphazardly biting the skin off your bottom lip, almost as if you were playing a game with yourself to see how much skin you could pull off in one go. It impressed me. Let’s discuss your tactics over tea and lip balm in public for 20 minutes after which I will never contact you again.
Competent at coffee shop in Cobble Hill- m4w (Brooklyn)
I have never seen anyone order a coffee with such confidence and preparedness. You’re not like the others. You understand the ethereal harmony that comes from having your order and payment ready while you’re on line so you can keep things moving. Teach me your ways.
Let’s talk about whatever we want – w4w (East Village)
You were at the bar with a group of men who wouldn’t shut up about Quentin Tarantino. Don’t worry, I saw you try to change the subject three times with no success. I was in the orange coat with the date insisting I didn’t appreciate Tom Waits enough. Your pain is my pain.
In Trade Fair, I like your style- m4w (Astoria)
Me: Shopping for the week. You: billowing purple pants and a yellow crop top underneath a knee-length down jacket. In your basket you had a jalapeno and what appeared to be at least 50 limes. Invite me up for whatever you’re cooking?
Wowed by your walk – w4w (Chelsea)
You were wearing jeans, grey converse, and a grey peacoat, and I just think you had a really competent walk. Like you knew exactly where you were going and were also very good at moving your legs in order to get there quickly. You don’t see that a lot these days. No need to contact, I just wanted you to know, whoever you are, that you come off as very confident and put together.
Behind you at the hardware store – m4w (Astoria)
I totally noticed the rude tone the shopkeep took with you when you asked for “glue that works well with wood” and he responded “you mean wood glue?” You don’t seem like an idiot to me.
I moved a dead rat out of the sidewalk yesterday, and today I checked to see if the grounds crew had grabbed it when they were edging and hedge-trimming, and BOTH TIMES I was very respectfully hit on by pleasant men. So. If you’re looking to attract some gentlemen, get a stick and start moving dead animals around.
“Oh wow, she looks really neat, I really want to talk to her, but stupid stupid, what would you even say if you did, just stay away its safe, what would you even talk about anyway just stay cool, stay cool SHE HAS A RAT I KNOW TO TALK ABOUT DEAD RATS TIME TO SOCIALIZE”
I don’t think I could not talk to someone moving around a dead rat with a stick. I don’t think I’d hit on the person, but I’d probably have to talk to them, even though I generally avoid talking to strangers in public.
Today it was
“Why are you standing in the flowerbed?”
“I’m looking at a dead rat.”
“Oh, do you want to get coffee sometime?”
That was quite a segue on his part.
Option A: saw you, didn’t care what you were doing, just needed to open the conversation to ask you out.
Option B: dead rats made him think of coffee.
Option C: a woman who will stand in a flowerbed looking at a dead rat is exactly his kind of woman, and he felt he needed to act fast before anyone else asked you out first
Option D: the juxtaposition of the ugliness of death and beauty of flowers made him suddenly aware of the fleetingness of life and emboldened him to take the plunge and ask out the cute stranger inspecting the dead rat.
This whole thing dead-rat-man-attractor thing is strange. I used to think it was strange that I would get hit on whenever I wore a dress, which I hated but my mom bought me, that made me look like a character from the Gingham Girls coloring book I had as a child. But this is far, far stranger.
‘dead rats made him think of coffee’ made me laugh out loud
I’m glad!
Now that I think about, though, sometimes the smell of coffee makes me think of hot dogs. And knowing what we do about hot dogs, it’s not *that* much of a stretch for dead rats to make someone think of coffee.
I upvoted you for your high-quality options (“a woman who will stand in a flowerbed looking at a dead rat is exactly his kind of woman” made me snort at my desk), but I had to comment on the Gingham Girls coloring book – I had that when I was a kid, and the paper dolls, too! I’ve never heard anyone else mention them before and was wondering if maybe I was getting them confused with Holly Hobby. I imagine the dress is awfully twee, though.
Thanks! And no, really?!!! I have also never heard anyone else mention them ever! I wasn’t sure anyone would get the reference. This made my day.
I loved them as a child, but at no time since childhood have I ever wanted to dress like one. The dress was SO twee. Peter Pan collar, gingham (obviously), ties at the waist that made a bow in the back. Came down to my ankles. Don’t even want to think about why it prompted men to hit on me. As soon as I could afford to replace it in my wardrobe, it disappeared from my closet.
And I bet that guy walked away from the convo like
Oh, you *know* he did.
you…. followed up…. on the dead rat issue?????
Was this dead rat located on property you own, or…. not?
I feel like I need more details.
Dead rat and I are old friends by now, I had to see how they were settling into their new flowerbed.
This is a sort of thoroughness I can only aspire to.
See, this sounds good, but it could take a dark turn if you find yourself i) lonely and ii) short of an adequate supply of dead animals
Rat traps are super cheap! I can keep this going forever!
I’m …pleased?…that you’ve thought this out.
For a while, there were mice in the lab at my school, and whenever we caught one, the DNA sequencer – which is a fussy piece of equipment – worked really well for about a week. We decided it needed blood sacrifices.
Then we eliminated the mouse infestation, the sequencer was off its game, and we were discussing how to proceed. I’m just porting the solutions over from that. It’s fine, it’s normal.
(Also I’m married, and the only dead animals required to prevent loneliness are trout that have been glazed with miso.)
Damn! I like the way you think.
What!? I saved a baby raccoon from a dumpster and NOBODY said anything to me. I feel robbed.
That is _charming_, you were robbed.
Here’s the picture (this happened three years ago though).
DORB.
A) This whole thread is a delight and could only be better if the dead rat flirtations had ended in a marriage proposal sure to vault LeastBittern into the prime spot in the NYT Sunday Style wedding announcements.
B) How did you manage to save a baby raccoon from a dumpster, given that raccoons are angry toothy hellbeasts?
WELL! I’ll be glad to share my wisdom in this aspect because maybe this will happen to one of you, dear comment-readers:
1. Get a long stick
a. If you see some painters standing nearby with a ladder (which I DID!) procure their ladder, instead of a stick
2. Put it in the dumpster
3. Back off! Wait patiently. Maybe say something like, oh, I don’t know, “come here, little guy. come on out.”
4. Watch the tiniest creature climb out, looking exhausted from trying to escape a garbage trap all night long
5. Squeal as quietly as possible.
6. Let the creature go and tell anyone you see to leave it alone.
7. Go about your business.
a. Give back the ladder to the nice painter guys.
awwwwwwwwww
This is similar to a method for removing barn rats from grain bins! Open the hatch, put in a board, run like hell. Those critters are fast and they will bite – and it is very scary! After about 20 minutes, return, double check the grain bin, go about business.
Apparently rather than saving the baby raccoon, you should have killed it.
Well, the one good thing that came out of it is now, like some sort of tick, I have to look in any of the big dumpsters I come across at work. Good thing I’m married already! Ha ha, what a sucker that guy was!
Once I found a kitten on campus and NO ONE ELSE WAS INTERESTED IN HELPING.
IT WAS A KITTY.
“A kitten? Sorry I’ve got an O-chem lecture to go to.”
“No, nope, no kitten for me, thanks. Reached my quota.”
“That looks like a lot of work.”
“Kittens aren’t even allowed on campus, how did you get that?!”
Please tell us the kitten’s fate?
We found her family after a few days- she has jumped in the car when they were taking their kids to a camp on campus and then jumped out when they got there. So she is safe at home with her family!
I’m astounded. We once found an abandoned kitten in one of the windowells of my office, and there were at least two dozen people who then devoted their workdays to the entirely necessary tasks of helping the kitty warm up, buying supplies for the kitty, locating a foster home for the kitty, petting the kitty, taking pictures of the kitty, and talking about the kitty.
I got in trouble at about age 9 when, my mother and my companions father being in a faculty meeting, the two of us rescued the kittens that had been dumped in the school dumpster, probably by the known dickbag down the road. I still feel that was unfair.
That was unfair! It sounds like 9-year-old you and your companion were sort of heroic.
(Abandoning pets is all too common in my area, but what kind of monster throws kittens in the garbage?)
I have garbage kitties! they were just four weeks old and found in a dumpster with their siblings. it’s really horrible example of humanity but it has a happy ending since all 6 kittens went to loving homes, in pairs.
(we do sometimes call them the trash cats but it comes from a loving place)
We call some of the cats in our house trash babies also because of this video: http://cat–vines.tumblr.com/post/114191239569/pa…
ahhh trash babies! what adorable piles of fluff.
It makes me so happy. And it’s fun to call a cute pile of troublesome fluff a trash baby.
I feel we were. The adults who had to drive home two children who smelled like two hours of chasing half-wild terrified kittens around a dumpster reasoned that we should have waited and asked the adults for help. The kittens ran for the grain field behind the school and I like to think they are there still, however unlikely that might be.
The monster who threw kittens in the garbage was likely an asshole farmer down the road known to get mad at baby barncats.
This would have been legitimately the best thing that could have happened at my old work. An office full of social workers and cops would have stopped EVERYTHING if we’d been graced with a kitten’s presence. We were always desperate for something to relieve the tedium, and we would have dined out on that experience for months afterwards. I’m envious.
It happened four years ago, and it still comes up in conversation sometimes. This is a blessing, because hearing how the cat is faring living with one of my coworker’s siblings is infinitely better than letting the discussion drift toward politics.
Oh man, there was a dead rat on the sidewalk across the street from my house a few weeks ago and I totally missed the opportunity to poke it with a stick and find love.
Further along the extreme of messing with dead animals, my roommate borrowed a saw from some utility workers recently to try to saw the tail off a dead raccoon lying in the gutter. They were awed but not impressed.
a+ username/comment combo
“eponysterical” we call that at Metafilter (I need it to catch on here!)
I will help in this quest!
Pleasant men who hit on me respectfully…well, they rarely succeed, but I always want to offer to be a reference on their flirting resume, so they can show other, less-pleasant men how to not be assfaces.
“Oh man, that was some gross, uncomfortable stuff you just said. Why couldn’t you be more like Steve? He engaged me in conversation about the proper disposal of dead rodents, and kept his eyes on my face the entire time. Then he offered me hand sanitizer in case I’d touched the dead rat. Steve’s a good guy. You are not a good guy.”
I keep a supply of gloves, bin liners and old towels in the back of my car because I feel obliged to pull over every time I see a dead cat on the road to scrape it up (I take it to work and scan it for a microchip in the hope of being able to contact the owner) and nobody has ever hit on me while I’ve been collecting bits of cat 🙁 what am I doing wrong?
w4w – You seem cool. Will you maybe be my friend?
You were climbing a tree in the park wearing bright yellow rain boots and singing quietly to yourself. If we were children I would ask you to be my best friend, having no concept of a future where we do not like all the same things. I am, sadly, an adult, and so are you, so instead would you like to climb some trees with me this weekend and pretend we do not know about the future? I will bring hot tea with lemon and cups to drink out of.
Unlurking for the first time ever to thank you for making me very sniffly with not-knowing-about-the-future nostalgia. Today felt entirely too grown-up, so this was lovely
Besuited subway guy – w4m
You were seated across from me on the M train. For three straight stops, you scratched your neck, already reddened with what looked distinctly like beard burn. You looked terrific in your grey suit and your haircut was immaculate, but I couldn’t stop staring at your hands.
I’m assuming the “you” in every one of these is actually you, Jaya.
Oh god the coffee one, I would be so smitten because honestly, all I want is to serve as an example to the dildobrains out there who don’t seem to understand commerce.
My mother, bless her, is the kind of person who tries to have a relationship with the barista/waiter/server of any sort. “Weeelllll, let’s seeee…” [charming smile] “Could I get a…well…everything just looks so good! What do you like? What’s your favorite iced tea flavor?”
This goes on for a while. Meanwhile the server and I are both dying quiet, painful deaths.
I have found that the surest path to a relationship with your barista is a five dollar tip.
I have also found that giving a five dollar tip on the morning of a job interview is HEAVILY CORRELATED with acing that interview.
Uuuuuuuuuuuggggghhhh I feel your pain so much. I had a boss who would do that. You have all my sympathy.
I once wrote a missed connection for something that happened when I was in NYC, it ended in a bunch of dudes messaging me pretending to be the person I was looking for. None of them were. Hooray for super-specific questions that only people involved would remember!
But hey, random drunk Irish dude that I gave a ride back to Queens once, get at me.
Oh man, I once did a missed connection to get it out of my system and HE RESPONDED! He said he had a girlfriend and I’m wondering if he really did or if he wasn’t interested. I never do MCs anymore because it was so embarrassing.
Not sure if I’m doing this right but I’ll give it a go
*rolls up sleeves*
BART to SFO – w4m
I caught you sneakily taking a photo of me, yes, my outfit was indeed rad and you have excellent taste. You also looked very snappy and clean-shaven. Let’s get coffee, but we’ll wear jammies instead of rad/snappy outfits.
Oooh, I have one that you reminded me of!
It seems so reasonable to want a picture of someone who is super-well-garbed, but so fraught with creepiness. I bet you guys’ jammies would be snappy too.
yeah it was 10 percent “ew don’t be a creeper” but 90 percent “god damn I am fabulous”
One of my coworkers had a missed connections written about her, back in my youth, when missed connections were printed in the free weekly paper. I spotted it and I was so excited to actually KNOW someone in the missed connections – I was probably more excited than she was, and way more excited than if it were about me. She never contacted the guy because she had a boyfriend and frankly it didn’t make the guy look that good – either ask for her number in person or let it go.
Oh, man, I would be so excited to know a missed connection! I saw one that listed my gym, and even that was pretty exciting.
A girl I used to work with had a friend who had a missed connection written about her by another girl, found it, and then the two girls who had previously missed their connection started dating! Modern romance can be beautiful!
We lived in a small city, and 40% of the missed connections were about a Target cashier with waist-length red hair and apparently excellent customer service skills. Just dude after dude talking about her “beautiful hair” and “you smiled at me, and I felt like we had a moment.”
Every time I went to Target (which was not often because there are smells there) I would scan the checkout lanes for this sylph. Never saw her.
Wow. Do you think she knew? Someone must have told her, right?
this is a bit off topic, but are there places that DON’T have smells?
I do not know if we are SPD friends sharing information about how to shop, or if my colloquial use of “smells” to mean “ubiquitous use of disquieting perfumes” is not clear to people outside my bubble.
If it’s the first one: amazon.com, stores for paranoid crunchy people, and getting sympathetic people to retrieve things from the smells aisles for you.
Book/soul mates?-m4m
You were at the library reading Three Guineas by Virginia Woolf. I caught a glimpse of the object in your tattered messenger bag; it was a spare book–a first edition of The Princess Bride.
Let us meet for a warm beverage of your choice at the library’s coffee cart to discuss the comparitive merits of first- vs. third-wave feminism and the problematic yet undeniable sex appeal of men dressed as pirates.
I get the feeling you just want to steal that first edition tho.
Not a Q Train Stalker – m4w
I know that we see each other at the same time every day on the same spot on the platform at union square and ride the same car and get off the same stop in central Brooklyn, and walk down the same street every single day until you walk into your apartment. I see you smiling at me nervously, because it seems like I’m following you home. I know that my weird laughter makes you and others nervous. But really, we’re just workaholic neighbors who leave or respective offices late in the evening, and I laugh at podcasts. I’m wearing really tiny headphones, I swear! You seem really nice, and I didn’t want to approach you IRL because that would seem weird. So I’m going to write about it on the internet.
what….q stop…?
Miss Fisher Chic –
I see you around every so often and you are always wearing the coolest ’20s-inspired outfits and I want to take a picture to send to my friends so we can all be impressed by how excellently you wear cloches and high heels on rainy, awful days.
Ooooh, maybe you can become best friends and solve murders together.
I have written one ever missed connection, with someone I never met. It was to the first responder who did an initial evaluation for concussion and shock after Beloved’s car was hit by a drunk driver and rolled. I thanked her for her skill and kindness and wished there was something I could do that was an adequate expression of my gratitude, and also said that he was expected to be fine.
I did that, too! Here’s what I wrote;
On Saturday morning, April 24, around 8:00, I was in a bad wreck at the corner of C St and B Ave. My car was totaled. I suffered only a jammed finger.
The first person to stop was a nice young man who identified himself as an off-duty paramedic. He was very calm and competent and checked my finger out and gave me advice on how to treat it. I didn’t get his name, but I wanted to thank him for stopping. So if you know him, tell him I am fine and that I did row in the regatta on Sunday.
In my memory, he rode up on a white horse, was wearing a Superman T-shirt, and sparkled slightly. I may be wrong on all of those details, though.
My all-time favorite missed connections ad, from the days when print classifieds were a thing:
M4W: Redhead on the Green line 4/12. You politely asked a grungy dude to stop groping your ass. He didn’t; you put him in a headlock. Marry me.
That’s the best thing I’ve ever seen.
#1 speaks to me, as I regularly chew my lips off during my commute. All I want is a boy who likes chapped lips.
He’ll want to kiss them better?
We have two Hy-Vee stores here and in neither one of them have I EVER, in the > 2 years they've been in town, gotten a cashier/bagger who knows how to bag. Like, the cat food cans are all round; stack them in cylinders in the bottom of the bag and put the chips on top! Don't be throwing them in the bag every-which-way and then shoving in the chips wherever they'll fit!
(…and…wegmans…)
I have on multiple occasions pushed my cart out of the checkout aisle and stood literally right behind the bagger to re-bag my own shit. I've also waved baggers aside and told them I'd do it myself. Ugh.
I wondered that too but it was a pretty narrow side street. It must the vulnerability!
I just read this while playing the lip game.