Very Small Array created this wonderful map from Craigslist’s Missed Connections. Each state contains the name of the locale featuring the greatest number of Missed Connections posts. (A Missed Connection is where one person posts on Craigslist in search of another person they saw, or spoke to, or locked eyes with, often in a public place, but for whatever reason didn’t strike up a conversation. If the other person sees it and gets in touch, romance just might result.)

Image from Very Small Array.

Wal-Mart dominates the heartland, Starbucks the West and Florida. In Texas, it’s Hooters. In the greater Northeast, people seem to most often miss connections at the grocery store, with Harris Teeter in Virginia, Safeway in Maryland, Wawa in Pennsylvania and Delaware, Stop ‘n Shop in Connecticut, Kroger in Ohio, and more.

Four states feature public transportation (not counting the airport, which is the most common Missed Connection spot for Montanans): Massachusetts (“the T”), New York (“Subway”, assuming that this means the actual subway and not the sandwich chain), and Washington DC (“Metro”). By the way, thanks for not forgetting the District of Columbia! And the most likely place to see but fail to meet people in Illinois: the bus.

They also make maps breaking down only M4W, W4M, M4M and W4W Missed Connections. It’s entertaining to see the difference between where men see women (even more Wal-Marts than in the overall map) and where women see men (for many states in the mid-Atlantic and the Midwest, it’s on the road).

Via Kelso Cartography.

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Tagged: maps, technology

David Alpert created Greater Greater Washington in 2008 and was its executive director until 2020. He formerly worked in tech and has lived in the Boston, San Francisco Bay, and New York metro areas in addition to Washington, DC. He lives with his wife and two children in Dupont Circle.