So, I did it. I bit the bullet and posted a Missed Connection.

I couldn’t help myself. I had seen a cute boy on the subway. Adorable, actually. This kid was everything I had been hoping New York would have tucked away in one of its dirty, graffiti covered apartments. Everything I had dreamed I’d softly bump into one of these sultry nights on 2nd Avenue.

He wasn’t a skinny, nauseatingly dressed Hipster. He wasn’t a gelled Wallstreeter secretly hiding a yellowed wife-beater under a polished polo. He wasn’t a moody artist wearing eyeliner and hunching over a notebook covered in scrawling of his pain. He was adorably normal. Sweetly natural. Still un-New York-ified. Just like me.

I saw him on the R train heading uptown. The moment I sat down and spied him I became consumed with sneaking looks at his tired, boyish face. He was dressed like he worked in some kind of uptown office, black pants a little too short for his lanky legs, old school headphones perched atop endearingly tousled brown hair. For 15 minutes I looked at him whenever he looked somewhere else.

All too soon he got off. I tried to watch him leave, but my vision was blocked by a marvelously fat guy and his incredibly giant lunch bag. 15 minutes was hardly long enough. I wanted more time with this specimen of cuteness.

“You should really post a Missed Connection” the Roommate urged later that night. “What’s there to lose?”

I guessed nothing, but…Craigslist? It was so…so…East Village. So…semi-desperate and childish. Sure, I read Missed Connections all the time, but posting on it seemed kinda…embarassing.

Then again, he was first cute boy I’d seen in months.

I posted an ad. Short, sweet, to the point, and letting the world know that even if the object of my affection never saw it (chances were high, in that regard), he had at least instilled in me a newfound belief in the adorably normal inhabitants of this city.

To me surprise, I got two replies. Within the first hour of posting.

Now, the important part to the rest of this story is the title of my Missed Connection: Adorable Boy on the R train this afternoon, you got off at 34th Street – 24, w4m.

The key word in that sentence is “adorable”. Pay attention to that word.

The first response sounded promising. It was light, funny.

“I am adorable! Could be me. Could it be you?”

I asked for clarification. “Did you notice a 20-something redhead with a bright blue bag sitting across from you?”

“Maybe” he responded, “You bored at work like me? How old did this guy look?”

Hmm. Conversation. Cute. “He looked young” I emailed back, “maybe he (you?) just had a young face. Early 20’s”

Five minutes later. “Oh. Not me then! I’m 38. What’s up with you, still working?”

….Really? Really, sir? It was clearly marked in my post that I’m 24 years young. It’s obvious I was looking for an adorable boy. Do people usually refer to 38 year olds as adorable? I mean, I guess you think you’re adorable. But 38 and (most likely) fat and balding is not my thing.

Still holding out hope that my boyish love would stumble upon Craigslist, I went back to work, periodically checking my email.

About thirty minutes later I received another message! Eagerly, I clicked on it. I was immediately blindsided by a photo of a dude who was most decidedly not adorable. Not to me, and not to anyone else, ever. “Interesting” would be a way to describe him, “oddly beak-nosed” would be another way, but cute he was not.

My waning hope was dashed by the next morning. No more emails had arrived. No fresh faced name popping up in my Inbox. Nothing. Nothing except two very misguided attempts at joining team adorable.

Will I ever post a Missed Connection again? Probably not. My hunch is all the cute people have better things to do.

But will I ride the R train to 34th street again? You bet. And this time, I’ll leave the internet out of an attempted connection.