The Internet is constantly redefining today’s social world. Volumes could be written about the implications of simply pressing “”like”” on someone’s Facebook activity. Yet, a perhaps less-noticed but endlessly fascinating niche of the social net is Craigslist.org’s Missed Connections.

Never before has pouring your heart out to the anonymous world of the net been so simple or so local. But is this a good thing?

Posts vary, but the basic idea falls into one of these categories:

1 The Angry Breakup Rant: Broken hearts use Missed Connections to pledge their hatred of an ex to the infinite reaches of the Internet.

2 The Sighting: Someone is out in public, notices someone else and is struck by love/interest/attraction. This person hopes that this missed connection post will bring their infatuation out of anonymity.

3 The Reunion: A long-lost friend hopes to reunite through invoking someone’s name on Craigslist.

4 The Creepy Post: Usually involves someone posting about a person who they see every day or habitually. Users likely figure that Craiglist is a place to proclaim their love/curiosities/confessionals about said person without them finding out.

Missed Connections takes something completely common — losing something you never knew you had — and gives it an amplified volume beyond its mundane reality.

This phenomenon isn’t something barely used or obscure. Take a look on Tucson Craigslist, and you’ll see daily messages fighting the specter of lost opportunity in your own town. There might even be one about you.

What does it all mean? For some, something fun to read. For others? Perhaps a chance at the ever-elusive and mythical “”true love.”” Or maybe a horrifyingly awkward realization.

Missed Connections adds another method of expression to the already seemingly exhausted list. Anonymity is a powerful thing, but if the intended audience doesn’t read Craigslist, what’s the point? Perhaps this enables people to be overly dramatic or too shy. Or maybe these posts are a new form of courtship.

But maybe Missed Connections isn’t such a bad thing. It’s definitely a hilarious read, despite being another way to make us feel way too important about ourselves.

— Kelly Mejdrich

See for yourself at tucson.craigslist.org/mis