This has gotta be one of the best examples of art imitating life we’ve ever seen: Ships That Pass is, to use the site’s own verbiage, “a collection of fake, imaginary and literary missed connections posted to Craigslist and then re-posted here [at Ships That Pass’ Tumblr page] with real responses.” The brainchild of Brooklyn-based poet Brett Fletcher Lauer (who’s written an awesome guest post about the endeavor here), it’s what an online performance-art installation commissioned by Margaret Mead might look like. Or a post-millennial, dot-com remake of those Griffin & Sabine pop-up-ish epistolary epics of my romantically angst-addled adolescence. (Anybody else remember those?) [YES!!!! Sob! — BG]

Here’s how it works: Myriad poets, writers and artists craft ersatz missed-connection posts, complete with the fictitious posters’ ages and the appropriate tag (m4w, w4m, m4m, w4w). These are uploaded to Craigslist as any real missed-connection missive would be; simultaneously, they appear on Ships That Pass. Should any unsuspecting Craigslist readers reply to the post, those emails are readable on Ships That Pass as follow-ups to the original. On the flip side, should a suspicious Craigslister flag a post for removal — as has happened a handful already — news of that post’s untimely demise is likewise reported. A missed connection that receives no action at all (overwhelmingly the case) is earmarked with a little sad face like the Zoloft mascot, informing Ships That Pass readers of “Another Missed Connection Missed.”

As anyone who’s read missed connections for sport knows, it’s the unknowable of “But did Girl with Nose Ring Wearing Military Jacket ever hear from Guy Reading The Tender Bar on the Uptown 2 Train?” that feeds their addictiveness. That, and the messages’ unbridled sentimentality. Whereas Craigslist’s other alt-personals, Casual Encounters and Misc. Romance, can depress the hell out of anyone hoping for a shred of flirtation, intrigue, chivalry or grammar to hang onto, Missed Connections is a bastion of well-intentioned, intelligently penned, old-fashioned courtship. One’s for nutjobs; the other’s for l’amour fou.

Enjoying the newly-habit-forming element of “Is it live or is it Ships That Pass?” probably won’t bode well for anyone’s to-do list. And then there’s the question of whether Missed Connectioning under false pretenses is ultimately setting up a stranger for disappointment. Judging by the responses so far, though, it seems that what drives people to reply isn’t the expectation that they’ve been identified/fancied/remembered. It’s their complicit understanding that the heart wants what it wants, and their immutable belief in art for art’s sake.

MSN.com, Match.com, HappenMagazine.com: they’re in a healthy and satisfying 3-way relationship. This Ask Lynn column is being promoted at Match on Yahoo this week…

This week Lynn advises Searching in New Hampshire — a 50-ish single mom looking for a man who is willing to date a woman with small children.

I have been online and have dated some but the minute I share that I have a nine-year-old, I don’t really hear back from the men that I’m corresponding with. I understand that most men my age have older children and have moved on from the kid thing.

Where should she look without moving to a bigger town? Read Lynn’s suggestions then come back here to comment!

Folks, this is getting as old as the people who allegedly lie about their age on the Internet. Are we really still slamming internet dating? It’s kind of like saying cell phones are bad, or “technology.” In the latest crabby smackdown, Rhodri Marsden, writing in The Independent, “reveals” the “truth” about Internet dating: things don’t work out more often than they do. Stop the presses? Because um, that is also true of bricks-and-mortar dating as well — it’s probability, not cynicism — not to mention, well, life. Saying that he has — aha! — found people who’ve been bruised by Internet dating! is like saying he’s found people who have been bruised by…dating. Duh. Everyone said it was handy. No one said it was magic.

To be sure, there are differences, concrete and ineffable, between dating online and IRL. Each has advantages and disadvantages. The fact that you can likely “meet” more people online than off does translate into more rejection: again, that’s math. And the Internet probably makes for more colorful before/after bait/switch experiences, but that’s because of the built-in online -> real-life progression; that’s story structure, folks. (Said it before: you mean all the people you meet on singles hikes tell the truth from day 1?) So to throw the Internet babes out with the bathwater is, to put a fine point on it, just dumb. So, too, is — if you’re single and would like to change that — not making Internet dating part of a diversified meeting-people portfolio.

So, enough. I’m outta here. Because BG spends some of her time online, and some of her time “getting out there.” See?

(h/t The Awl)

MSN.com, Match.com, HappenMagazine.com: they’re in a healthy and satisfying 3-way relationship. This new Ask Lynn column is being promoted at Match on Yahoo this week…

Curious (and Confused) Carrie complains of a boy she met online that went from flirtatious to flat within 24 hours:

We went on our first date this weekend … We ended the evening with a goodnight kiss (OK, three small ones) and things seemed to have gone so well. … I called him once and was sent to voice mail and have not heard from him since then.

How long should she wait to call again? (She thinks 72 hours.) Why has the stream of funny emails stopped? Is this about the meeting in IRL thing? See what Lynn thinks at Match, then come back here to give your own assessment in the comments below.

MSN.com, Match.com, HappenMagazine.com: they’re in a healthy and satisfying 3-way relationship. This column, which previously ran at Happen, is being promoted at Match on Yahoo this week, so we are putting it back on our front page for comment.

This week Lynn hears from Sweaty Steve, whose hyperhidrosis (unusual sweat output) has put a crimp in his dating life:

The last time I went on a date with someone, we never made eye contact with each other and hardly talked because I was busy trying to hide my hands and checking my pits every time I went to the bathroom.

Does Steve need to deal with his nervousness, his condition, or both? See what Lynn has to say, then leave your own comments or encouragement below!

PLEASE read (BG alter-ego) Lynn Harris’ new article for match.com if your online profile looks anything like this:

Me: otherwise easygoing SF, 29, in desirable neighborhood near excellent schools and world-class cheese market. You: 31-36, Ivy League (except Penn), minimum 5’ 10″, maximum 180 lbs., pectoral-to-waist ratio .33; fiscal conservative/social liberal; profession: law, medicine, banking (employer must have innovative paternity leave policy); hobbies: pan-Asian cooking, helping the needy, foot rubs; civil to (but not “friends” with) ex-girlfriends (maximum: 2); informed, witty, self-starter: equally comfortable chatting at state dinners and changing tires. Send introductory email along with photo, high school and college transcripts, 3 recommendations (1 academic, 1 professional, 1 non-threatening friend-girl) plus two 750-word essays on the topics: (1) “A Man of Quality is Not Threatened By A Woman For Equality” and (2) “Why I Always Share My Feelings.”

You know that charming but not TOO charming, witty but not TOO witty, flirty but not TOO flirty back-and-forth you’ve struck up with that guy at CouldThisBeTheOne.com? You might actually be flirting back not with that guy himself, but with virtual-virtual him: a correspondent hired to take care of the pre-meeting nitty-gritty online half of online dating.

The Washington Post reports that more and more singles (roughly 80% men) are getting some very personal assistants — whether their own secretaries or via a new cottage industry of ghost writers — to manage their online dating correspondence for them: creating their profiles and handling all  correspondence up to but not including the actual, real-life date. Why? Mostly, they tell the Post, because they’re busy. Really busy. And yes, to be fair, the online part of online dating — while efficient — can indeed be time-consuming. Then again, so can explaining why it was not actually YOU that they’d been flirting with the whole time. So.

Part of me wants to say “Hey, we’re all ‘busy.’ Make time, hosers.” But part of me can summon a little more rachmones than that. I mean, they’re trying. They’re not giving up. They’re not getting all Up in the Air and letting “busy” be an excuse for not searching at all. Tacky, maybe, but there’s some hope there, too. And I can always get behind hope.

What do you think? Acceptable compromise, or Cyrano-no?

MSN.com, Match.com, HappenMagazine.com: they’re in a healthy and satisfying 3-way relationship. Meaning that you can find MSN/Match.com’s “Ask Lynn” columns –penned by BG’s alter ego — over at Happen now as well.

This week Lynn hears from Distracted Dan, who is worried about what his online date with think when she sees him in the flesh — but for a very specific reason:

The problem is I have not told her that 18 months ago I had gastric bypass surgery and lost 140 lbs. I still have a lot of loose skin left over (which is not very obvious once I am dressed).

How should Dan handle the situation, and more importantly, his own insecurity? Get the full picture at Happen, then let us know in the comments what you’d do!

From the Charlotte Observer: “A forthcoming study by a Duke University researcher and several colleagues confirms what not-so-thin women and short, broke men have long suspected: They don’t get nearly as much romantic attention as skinny women and tall, financially secure guys.” You need a study for that? Here, I got a study. It’s called pay my rent, food, and Netflix. Fund that, science people.

The study, out of the University of Chicago, is still under peer review before publication. But here’s what we know: analyzing 22,000 online daters, researchers found that “women put a premium on income and height when deciding which men to contact.” They did the math: the study showed that a 5-foot-9-inch man needs to make $30,000 more than a 5-foot-10-inch one to be as successful in the dating pool.

Men in the study demonstrated a strong, and depressing, preference for women with a BMI of 18 or 19, which basically means if you’re 5′ 6″ you’ve gotta weigh 115. So okay, women want men who can afford to take them to dinner, but the men don’t want us to eat. This should work just fine.

Sarcasm aside, I’m still annoyed with this study — or at least, to some degree, this article about it — and the way it only, and unnecessarily, perhaps even misleadingly, perpetuates and underscores that same-old same-old depressing, needlessly divisive message: “The only thing men and women have in common is that they’re shallow.” ‘Cause here’s the thing: the article and the researchers talk about what a fertile field for study these online sites are, because there are just so many people on them. Right: there are just so many people on them. That’s why people go in — or at least online — with those faux-“high” standards. Because they can. There are so many eligible singles there, at least in urban and urbanish areas, that you can afford to impose a minimum height or maximum BMI standard. You know? Then later, at a party, you happen across someone who — for whatever ineffable reason — makes your heart go pitter-pat, maybe someone whose attributes you wouldn’t have click-clicked and checklisted, and boom, you give them a chance. I’m not saying some people aren’t shallow, but still.

As the article, to be fair, does state: “Since the study focuses on first impressions and initial contacts rather than marriage, it doesn’t rule out the chance of true love winning despite appearance or income. ‘If you had to sit down and write what you wanted in your dream guy, most girls would write ‘tall, hot and well-off,'” said Kari Castle, a 27-year-old online dater in Charlotte. ‘But in reality, is that the only thing they’d settle for? Probably not.'” Right.

So, I guess, since the study doesn’t really tell us much, the reporter is forced to fill in with dumb cranky unhelpful — and dare I say self-fulfilling — quotes like, “It’s got nothing to do with anything but green,” [said one bachelor]. “If you’ve got enough money, you’ll have women swarming all over you.” Attitude, people! Actually, it might be a guy in the comments who said it best: “If you think women will only like you if you have a sizable bank account, you are the one who makes that happen.”

Shock and Ew on March 16, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

I’ve been dating a guy since last summer. Things seemed to be going rather well. Then I discovered an ad in the personals online that he placed. After the initial shock, I called and asked him about it. He said that he must have been mad or something and that he would delete the ad. It is still there. How should I handle this?

— Carole

Dear Carole–

1. What were you doing reading the personals? Snooping, or scoping? Neither bodes well.
2. Unless the ad now says, “SM seeks F” — F as in Forgiveness — it’s time to delete him.

Love,
Breakup Girl