missed connections
Fleeting almost-encounters catalogued
Missed connections are brief encounters with strangers that felt meaningful but ended without exchanging contact information.
The term became associated with personal ads—originally in newspapers, later online—where people describe someone they saw on the subway, in a coffee shop, or at a concert, hoping that person might see the post and respond: Missed connection: you were reading Borges on the L train, we made eye contact.
The phrase also describes any failure to meet up as planned: We had a missed connection at the airport.
- personal adPublished romantic solicitation
- strangersPeople unknown to you
- subwayUnderground transit passage
- glanceBrief, casual look
- regretSorrow over past actions
longing · fate · chance · encounter · eyes · train · coffee shop · fleeting · romantic · lost · serendipity · sliding doors · what-if · timing · brush · crowd · platform · anonymous
- travel discomfortmotion sickness, airsickness, carsickness, seasickness, jet lag
- travel problemslost luggage, flight delays, flight delay, delayed flight, cancellations
- personalspersonal ads, personals, SWM, classified ads, dating profile
missed connectionsdating profile
Self-description for potential matches
matched · connected · love at first sight · hit it off · reconnected
missed, missing, misses, connect, connected, connecting, connects, connection, connections