We can be honest on blogs these days, right?

Yes? Good — because right now I’m going to be honest in a way that I’m usually not. I’m going to have one of those brief moments of complete and unabridged honesty that enable a person to admit something a little more than potentially embarrassing. One of those honest-to-god truths that could very well change how people perceive you. Something that goes so against the good, wholesome, nice guy image you spend every waking moment aspiring to.

What am I going to be honest about? Here it is:

I’m addicted to the Missed Connections section of Craigslist.

Ok ok, I hear you now:  being obsessed with Missed Connections is nothing new. Everyone I know checks it every now and then, but I tell you, I’m absolutely obsessed with it. Whenever I’m near an internet connection for at least 5 minutes you can be guaranteed that I’m going to check the m4m section of Missed Connections at least twice. And I always joke that if someone left me a Missed Connection, I’d die right after reading it…or be so overcome with jubilation that I’d ascend to heaven right then, my life’s destiny having been fulfilled.

But now, I’m starting to think that might not be such a joke anymore.

The eye-opening moment occurred just a few days ago. I was out having a few drinks with friends (because I don’t do that nearly enough), when I noticed a guy across the bar staring at me. I mean, like, really staring at me.

I’m talking full-on, I-want-to-spend-the-rest-of-my-god-given-life-with-you-but-not-before-I-make-sweet-sweet-love-to-you-right-here-right-now staring at me.

Yeah.

And when I say this guy was attractive, he was freakin’ GORGEOUS. I’m talking good-looking on a level that’s dangerous, because the guy is so much more attractive than what you’re used to that you’d be tempted to enter into the most fucked up, dysfunctional relationship in the world just to be around him.

(You know, like with Hugh Jackman. So what he’s married to a woman he loves? So what they have kids that he loves even more? So what the aforementioned factors heavily indicate that he’s straight? By all that’s holy, you’d make it work.)

And here he was, this guy, this most perfect guy, devoting most of his attention (he was with friends, too) to me, and I’d had the required amount of rum-based drinks to flirt back! I had the sexy-eyes set to “full boner.” I was even doing the thing that you do when you’re out with friends and you’re flirting with someone – you know, where you glance at the guy and then quickly look back at your friends and laugh really loud and look completely invested in the conversation your friends are having, when in reality you couldn’t care less what the topic of conversation was because you’re too busy playing eye-footsy with the guy across the bar. I even managed to covertly loosen a button on my shirt to give him ample view of my man-cleavage.

(give him ample view of my man-cleavage…yes, I just typed that out…yes, that’s just how hot this guy was and how bad at flirting I am…)

But he was eating it up. Every time I looked over at him his eyes were dead set on me. Piercing, brown, and totally interested.

And I know what you may be thinking now, “Brando, I hope you’re writing this post from one of those hip  megabuses with the free wifi, sitting next to your new boo and on your way to start your new life in one of those awesome states that allows to gays to marry.”

Unfortunately, no. I’m writing this post from the laundromat – currently booless (but soon to be heavily stocked on clean underwear).

And why? Because instead of getting some nerve and walking a few feet over to the other side of the bar to initiate conversation, I stayed on my end and continued socializing with my friends. And when it was time to leave, I left.  And my leaving without talking to the guy was very much intentional. Not just because I was a little too chicken-shit. Not just because I smelled like a mixture of coffee and dirt after having worked all night.

No, I mostly withdrew with the conscious hope that the mystery guy would be so enamored with me that — as I’m sure you figured out by now — he’d leave me a Missed Connection.

Needless to say, but the time I got on the subway I felt like a right idiot.

That’s right, my obsession with Missed Connections runs so deep that I passed up the possibility of romance just for the snowball’s chance in hell that the hunk would leave me a message on a public website about…the possibility of romance.

And there’s my moment of honesty. Because, as you now see, I can bitch about being single on my blog as often as I’d like, but it’s eye-opening moments like this that demonstrate that, more often than not, I’m the orchestrator of my own loveless circumstances. And my path to forced solitude can take various avenues (self-absorption at the forefront here). And maybe that’s why I’m so obsessed with Missed Connections. Taking control and taking charge with guys in a public setting has always been an issue of mine. With the Missed Connection, a semi-anonymous declaration of affection put out for the world  to see, you don’t really have to worry about all that.

Maybe I should start looking for more romantic fulfillment in real life, instead of hoping for a non-committal Missed Connection…

Fuckity-Fuck-Fuck