Despite my distaste of clubs, i had to break down to see my favorite DJ and i had a nice little mindshift, where i just wasn’t going to let anyone get in the way of me having fun and bouncing crazily. With this mindset, i went all the way up front and actively demanded dancing space and disregarded any stupidity from the people around me (like the guy who thought to grind me from behind who i elbowed with joy in a flaling dance move). In the process, one guy smiled at me and started dancing goofily. After a bit, i kindly told him that i wasn’t interested but that i was having fun dancing and that i hope that he wasn’t hurt by this. He was disappointed but tried to keep dancing anyhow. Apparently, he wrote to Missed Connections on Craigslist and i have to admit that his note makes me smile:
Desert Storm fatigues at Infected Mushroom
You really are a kickass dancer! I keep thinking today the classiness with which you handled my advance. That was very cool. Everyone should be that cool. Hope you had a great evening…
Positive feedback for a needed shift in consciousness.
I’m so impressed! Finding a Missed Connection addressed to you is like catching a zulu coconut at mardi gras. It’s the holy grail of craigs list addicts! Congratulations, I’m so jealous 🙂
By the way, my favorite story of the Net spilling over into real life is the Missed Connection Bus Stop Guy Saga, which I was unable to find a summary of in a google search just now, so I’ll jsut enter it here for posterirty.
There was a girl who started raving on the Missed Connection list about some guy she was drooling over who waited at a bus stop each day as she passed in her car on the way to work. Her obsession caused other people to get curious and since she described him rather clearly in terms of appearance and location these other people scoeped him out and reported back to the list that he was indeed a yummy specimen of man-flesh. It sort of snowballed from there, turning into a group obsession mediated through the mailing list. People were surreptitously stalking him. They found out where he worked and lived. They took photos and posted them to the net. They got his phone number and called him. IIRC some people talked to him to gain tidbits of info and gleefully posted the quotidian debris of his life to the mailing list. Eventually though he was able to figure out what was going on and even though he didn’t know anything about the Internet really, especially not Craigs List, he managed to get online and send a message to the list begging everyone to please leave him the hell alone. It was freaking out his wife.
I only caught the tail end of this, when people were discussing it in past tense, so I’m not 100% sure on all the details but I’m reasonably certain it’s not just a net legend. In any case. It’s my fav story of internet-mediated mania 🙂
Ah, well the compliments are too kind.. I didn’t actually find the missed connection, but my friends recognized my absurd pants in the title!
As for the group dynamic in the story you tell… OMG that’s fabulous!!!! I swear it’s so easy online to forget that people are real and to play out social interactions as though it’s another virtual game. Wow. I must munch on that.