I also noted a reoccurring allusion to fantasizing about the need for actual contact. In her photographic series titled Missed Connections (2008), Valerie Garlick authored and altered posts from Craigslist’s renowned personals section about extremely brief un-encounters. She then creates photographic images that lead us to believe that all posts are about the same person: herself. These works treated the complex subject of desire in a very simple manner. In a sense, personal ads are always about one person (other than the artist or self): the one who is not there, or the one that got away. Vagner Whitehead

“It’s hard to tell,” says Craigslist.org founder Craig Newmark. “The anonymity involved in posting makes it difficult to keep track of success stories.”

And even when a missed connection is found, things don’t always go as planned.