Ever had one of those moments when you just sit back and all you can think is "whoa." Yea, you might have guessed it, but I just did. Now the boyfriend and I watched this amazing movie called "Craigslist Joe." It truly is an inspirational movie. The premise of the movie is this student (I'm guessing video or film major) is going to live off of purely Craigslist ads for one month. I'm talking no money, and no contact to people whom he knows off of Craigslist. He has to basically find somewhere to live, someway to eat, and live via Craigslist. It's truly inspirational and he gets to see the country out of the goodness of people's hearts. Great movie, go watch it. But the boyfriend and I got to talking about Craigslist. I never noticed some of the things they have up there.
Now there is one section I knew about and was trying to explain to him. It's called missed connections. Basically, it is someplace you post a shout out to someone who you felt a connection or you just want to tell them they are beautiful or what have you. Some of them are as simple as, "You passed me at the gas station, we spoke a few words, and I really wanted to get to know you. If you see this, please respond to this post."
While trying to explain this to the boyfriend, I used a personal experience. I was going to school up in Chicago, and was commuting home to Northwest Indiana for the holidays. While on the "L" (the public trains up in Chicago) I noticed this guy about my age traveling with 3 bags and a Violin case. I felt bad for him and smiled. I noticed he got off on my stop and was trying to get down the stairs to the street with all these bags. I helped him get down the stairs and went on my way. As I headed into the Metra/South Shore station, I couldn't help that he was still following me. My train got there and we ended up on the same train, sitting right next to each other (well, he was in the seat in front of me). He had turned around one and kinda smiled and I just plugged into my iPod and starred out the window. He turned around again and conversation struck up. Turns out he was going to school in NYC and was home for the holidays as well. Originally from Chesterton.
When we got to my stop (an hour later and very much into the conversation) the conductor informed him her needed to move to the front two cars of the train since passed this stop the doors back in our car wouldn't open anymore. I felt bad for him having to move all his things again, so I helped him grab his bags and run to the front of the train. I had enough time to drop his things off with him and then get back off the train before it departed again. Never once learning his name. Although I was so intrigued and wished I had caught it. Just a passing glance meet and greet kind of thing.
I got to this part of the story and the boyfriend stopped and asked, "Wait, he's from Chesterton? I grew up there hun, what did he look like, how old was he?" I remember a few brief snippets from our conversation, like how we were both freshman in college at the time so he had to be my age. And the fact that he was blonde with curly hair. So the boyfriend starts digging around on Facebook and pulls up the picture... that looks exactly like the kid I met on the train. Low and behold, this kid is going to school in NYC. Go figure. It's the mystery man on the train. The boyfriend immediately messages him and basically says, "hey man, not sure if you remember me form school but I have this crazy story to tell you..." and proceeds to explain it all.
Small world huh? Crazy how things happen. Or how people who you thought you would never see or hear from again are actually so close. I guess we really are only six people removed.
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