Don't Waste Your Missed Connection on a Blue Coat

It is pointless to tell the internet you saw a woman in a blue coat at Euston because every third person in London owns a navy Uniqlo puffer.

Most people who post on Just Once are too polite. They write about lovely smiles or kind eyes. The problem is that everyone thinks they have a lovely smile, especially after two pints. If you want to find the man who sat opposite you on the 38 bus, you need to stop being poetic and start being a bit of a weirdo. You need to remember the things that actually distinguish a human being from a mannequin.

I read a post recently where someone described a girl as 'looking like a summer day'. That is useless. It is a waste of data. If she reads that, she will think you are a creep or that you have mistaken her for a poem. If you had mentioned that she was eating a specific brand of pickled onion crisps and had a sticker of a French bulldog on her laptop, she would know it was her. Specificity is the only thing that works when you are shouting into the digital void.

The power of the ugly detail

People are terrified of being rude, so they leave out the best identifying markers. If the person you saw had a massive, peeling sunburn on their left shoulder, put it in the post. If they were struggling with a broken umbrella that kept snapping shut on their head, that is your headline. These are the things people remember about their own day. They don't remember being 'ethereal'. They remember that their zipper got stuck in their jumper at the Tesco checkout.

Look for the things that went wrong. I once saw a post that worked because the writer mentioned the stranger was carrying a very leaked-upon bag of frozen peas. That is a concrete fact. It is also slightly embarrassing, which makes it more likely to stick in the mind. People are narcissists. We are constantly monitoring our own minor failures. If you document those failures, you are much more likely to get a reply.

Avoid the physical cliches

Stop talking about height. Unless someone is seven feet tall or unusually short, height is a guess. Most people think they are two inches taller than they actually are. The same goes for hair colour. Under the fluorescent lights of a late-night Co-op, everyone’s hair looks like the same shade of muddy brown. Do not rely on it. Instead, look for what they chose to put on their body.

"I wasn't looking at his face, I was looking at his shoes because he had one red lace and one neon yellow lace, and he was trying to kick a piece of stuck chewing gum off his heel for three stops on the Victoria Line."

That quote is from a successful connection. It works because it is a sequence of actions. It is a tiny story. You should describe a habit or a movement. Did they keep checking their watch every thirty seconds? Did they have a peculiar way of folding their newspaper into a tiny square? Did they spend five minutes trying to decide between a tuna sandwich and a chicken wrap? These are the breadcrumbs that lead someone back to a specific moment in time.

Things to include in your post

If you are staring at a blank text box on Just Once, try to answer these questions instead of trying to be a writer. It will save everyone a lot of time and increase your chances of a date by about forty percent.

• The exact time you saw them, rounded to the nearest five minutes.
• The name of the brand they were wearing, especially if it's something niche like a local band t-shirt or a specific sports club.
• Any interaction they had with a third party, like a rude waiter or a confused tourist.
• The specific book or magazine they were reading. Titles are better than genres.
• A mistake they made, like trying to walk through a door that clearly said 'pull'.

If you can’t remember at least two of these things, you might be out of luck. You probably just saw a handsome person and got a bit dizzy. That is not a missed connection; that is just living in a city.

The location is not just a name

Don't just say 'The Eagle pub'. The Eagle is big. Tell them you were the person sitting under the broken heater near the toilets. Tell them you saw them spill half a Guinness on their own suede shoes. The geography of the encounter matters because it helps the stranger retrace their steps. They need to be able to visualise where they were standing in relation to you.

I spent an afternoon in a pub in Sheffield once, watching a man try to do a crossword while a child at the next table kept poking his leg with a plastic dinosaur. If he had posted a missed connection, he shouldn't have mentioned his 'thoughtful expression'. He should have mentioned the plastic Triceratops. That is the anchor of the memory. Without the anchor, the memory just floats away like a lost balloon.

Stop being so nice

Romance is often quite messy and a bit loud. It usually involves someone being slightly flustered or looking a bit tired. If you try to polish the encounter until it shines, you lose the reality of it. You make it sound like a perfume advert. Nobody recognises themselves in a perfume advert because the people in them don't have pores or bills to pay.

Write your post as if you are describing a suspect to a slightly bored police officer. Be clinical. Be blunt. If they had a weird laugh that sounded like a seagull choking on a chip, say so. That seagull laugh is the reason they will email you back. They will be offended for a second, then they will laugh, and then they will realise that you were actually paying attention to the real them, not some flat version of a person.

Go on then. Write down the thing about the leaking peas.