The "Missed Connections" section of Craigslist gets thousands of ads of this type every month in New York City, San Francisco, and Seattle.
[1] The feature was started by Jim Buckmaster, Craigslist's CEO, after he noticed a common type of posting in their personal ads, which he characterized as "you-smiled-at-me-on-the-subway-platform".
He sees the format as addressing a common human need and being ideal for romantic comedy, "Missed Connections give people that second chance...They represent persistence in the face of long odds, which definitely adds to their artistic appeal."
Many connections are re-established and couples have become married in this way, such as "tall rugby player" and "beautiful lady in the red dress with long brown curly hair".
[6] Mobile phone apps such as Grindr or Spotted have been created which facilitate hook-ups between strangers immediately, though these require location data.
[10] "Missed Connections," a live, interactive play with magic, conceived for virtual experience, co-written by Jon Tai & Alex Gruhin, performed by magician Jon Tai, and directed and produced by Alex Gruhin, ran from February 2-February 28, 2021 at Chicago's MacArthur and multi-Jeff award winning A Red Orchid Theatre, during the Coronavirus pandemic.
The play, a magician’s cosmic love story inspired by the work of Haruki Murakami, Marshall McLuhan and Derren Brown, takes 25 audience members on a roundtrip voyage to the stars in search of the invisible thread that connects them all.
An early example of such a once seen ad was placed by a Samuel Reeves, and read "A gentleman who, on the twentieth instant, had the honour to conduct a lady out of boat at Whitehall Stairs, desires to know where he may wait on her to diclose a matter of concern.