Miss Connections: The One Where No One Lies to Make Themselves Look Better

If you’ve read the last two Miss Connections (with this baby makes three—a long-time reader, that makes ye!), you know that there seems to be a growing fetish in Boston for the stalker/stalkee dynamic. So far, the stalking has been limited to isolated incidents, but in this week’s first MC, it’s a recurring, perhaps daily, event:

Blah, blah, blah – m4w – 38 (Revere)

Compelling. Go on…

You are a woman who I would sometimes catch watching me. You live directly across from my window.

I totally trust this guy, he doesn’t seem to have tendencies towards wishful thinking/justifying misdemeanors at all.

I am reclusive yes but all and all I believe myself to be a pretty awesome guy IMHO. I wasn’t particularly looking for anyone in my life for obvious reasons but then I started to wonder about you.

If you actually thought you were “a pretty awesome guy,” you wouldn’t need to tell us your HO (Honest Opinion) at all. And is the “obvious reason” you weren’t looking for anyone because you’re so “awesome” that you spend too much time watching your neighbor (ostensibly) watch you?

Why did you watch me?

Ditto.

Were you lonely too?

Uh, listen, I think you misunderstood—

Were you my “one?” Did you need me?

absofuckinglutely not.

So on Christmas I left a music box, a book, some lavender potpourri, and a Godiva chocolate bar on your doorstep. I thought you would think it was sweet. I thought maybe you would reach back out to me…

You never did.

WHY WOULD I—WHY WOULD I EVEN?

That is why I am no longer where you always found me. I just need to clear my head now and deal with all the other shit i have going on in my life.

Oh, well, I can’t imagine what kind of “shit” you’re dealing with if staring through your neighbor’s window and leaving her an anonymous stoop surprise, then expecting her to telepathically interpret who it is from and how to respond, seems normal. It’s hard out here for a p-i-m-p.

The next MC seems fairly normal, at first glance:

The animal that poses the biggest threat to the orangutan is man – m4w – 30 (Boston)

I read this on the Wikipedia page for Orangutans. I figured I woulc teach, as well as tell you that I miss you. I know we can’t see each other any more, but I hoped at the very least I could put a smile on your face. I am still here, if you ever change your mind…you know how to reach me…

C

…until you think at all about the title. Obviously, these two people share some sort of connection over orangutans (Both are feral children raised by the ginger ape-humans, perhaps, or met while ruminating aloud over evolution in front of the orangutans at the Franklin Park Zoo. People do that.). So using the fact that human poachers are largely responsible for killing them off as your hook is ballsy. Actually, I find it really disturbing. Like, if you both shared a love of “The Wizard of Oz,” and decided to use, “You know the scene where the munchkin hangs himself from a tree in the background?” as the title of your MC. It’s about on that level of sexiness.

This next MC is also ballsy, but in that really awesome honesty-will-make-me-stronger way, where you have to admire the writer for her shamelessness in reaching out to someone who most would chalk up to a drunken one-night-stand-ing promise to myself to stop telling people about my goddamn domesticated chipmunks:

We met you on the street and we held hands – w4m – 22 (Jamaica Plain)

Of course I feel like a drunk mess for this, but all I can remember is meeting you on the street, talking a bunch, holding hands, and you coming back to my apartment to see my gerbils. Then this morning, you were gone and I had none of your info. You were so cute and I really hope you know your Craigslist.

God, that makes two of us.  It’s hard to say whether she actually owns two glamourized forest rats, or whether she just uses the word “gerbils” to refer to her naughty niblets–and, honestly, I’d rather not know.  But either way, this seems like a genuinely adorable moment, in which the poster’s self-aware drunken smittenness makes up for the fact that Strangers in the Night usually applies more to a morning-after Regret Parade than a croony Sinatra song.

The next MC gem is from a refreshingly honest gay fellow:

Literate hotties at the Harvard Book Store warehouse sale – m4m – 30 (Park Street, Somerville)

So many adorable readerly guys at the warehouse sale. Sorry I wasn’t paying very much attention to you, future husbands & boyfriends … there were just so many books.

Though I’ve never identified as a gay male, I feel like I can relate to this MC very well. But, then, I also believe I will never meet someone whom I get along with as well as The Unbearable Lightness of Being, so I guess nerdery > human interaction. Books have always returned my texts…if you know what I mean.

And, to end on a note of genuine appreciation for the simple joy of being a loony:

Crosswalk Shenanigans – m4w – 26 (Harvard Square)

Oh man, this was awesome. I stopped to let you cross and you like danced / frolicked / arm waved across for no damn reason. And then you turned back and smiled. We should totally be pals.

Shit, I wanna be friends with this woman.  Being authentic enough to Sound of Music your way across a street is pretty rad. Frolic on, Skipper, frolic on.