Photo courtesy of Morgan Maccione.
Disclaimer: what follows is a romantic’s account.
If you know me, then you may know I am near-sighted and so often walk around campus without my glasses. This lends itself to missed waves, missed moments of eye-contact, and missed instances of potential connections. Enter: the recent Instagram account @missed.conn.ections, where Camels can send an anonymous message to a student they had a missed connection with. For the most part, students have shared meet-cutes, revealed crushes, and uplifted their peers during a year where intimacy is almost impossible. The handle is an endearing pun about the “missed connections” due to the pandemic (or near-sightedness), bringing new meaning to Conn’s “Connections” curriculum. Forget the modes, it’s all about love.
The account debuted in February 2021, an appropriate time given the holiday that shall not be named, and has since gained over 700 followers. With over 100 posts (and counting), if you haven’t already been stalking @missed.conn.ections waiting for your submission to be posted, I suggest you do so now because no essay is as important as finding your soulmate. In some ways, @missed.conn.ections is Connecticut College’s very own Gossip Girl (without the back-stabbing motivation) and Lady Whistledown from Netflix’s Bridgerton (without the focus on marriageability). There are a plethora of Conn-based social media accounts out there, but @missed.conn.ections is charming in its aim. As a follow-up to Opinions section editor Kelly Wallace’s ‘21 article on @missed.conn.ections, I slid into their DMs (as one does) to learn more about the account.
The students who run the page reveal that a lot of schools have similar accounts, for example, @colby.missed.connections and @skidmoremissedconnection, but Conn did not have its own account until this year. While the admins of the account decided to take action, they also reveal that they had other, more relatable motives: “honestly, we constantly see hot people on campus, and we have like 700 crushes that we just call ‘Glasses Kid’ or ‘Coffee Closet Girlfriend ;)’ or “Skateboard Boy” or some other absurd nickname.” I mean same: I referred to my high school crushes as “Cornflake” and “Salmon.” They explain “instead of just silently stanning these people from afar we could let them know that they’re appreciated in a way that is not scary.” And that’s the beauty of the account: students can approach their crushes (or anyone else for that matter) in a less intimidating manner.
So, if you saw someone cute on your way to the Testing Center, now is your chance to let them know how hot they looked. All you have to do is click the Google form link in their bio, click “yes” to them sharing your submission, and wait. We hate to admit it, but there’s not much of a strategy. We save up submissions and try not to post too many a day to keep engagement, but usually if one of us logs into the form and sees one that’s particularly funny we’ll just post it.” Almost all of the posts stir various emotions in their followers, as well as the admins who say “We love the funny ones but also the ones that are just genuinely sweet [that] really restore our faith in people.” Some of their favorites include the posts about peeing on Tempel Green, grilled cheeses, and falling over in various locations on campus. Not to mention, “the barista discourse is also super interesting to us, as we are divided over which shop has the most attractive baristas.” I will leave that debate up to another article. Personally, I admire the weirdly descriptive posts as it takes guts to “shoot your shot” and I tend to subscribe to the “less is more” philosophy. I also deeply relate to those who await their camel moment on @missed.conn.ections––now is the time to get into the habit of daily walks.
Although the account was made with the intention of connecting people virtually, there comes responsibility with sharing information online, which the admins are aware of. “We do elect to not post certain submissions sometimes.” If someone’s first and/or last name is included, they will DM that person and ask for their permission to post, or not post it at all if they cannot find their social media account as “We don’t want anyone to feel uncomfortable.” They went on to say, “We also have to be careful with submissions such as the one mentioning a problem with cultural appropriation.” The admins communicated with other Conn accounts including @POCAconncoll to make sure they handle such submissions carefully. They also make clear that “if a submission is overly sexual in a vulgar or aggressive way we won’t post it – there’s a difference between being funny and just being creepy.”
Nonetheless, the account has made students feel more connected and “seen” during a semester where we are separated. Besides the submissions, there is also an interaction between students in the comments of each post. “We know people have been feeling isolated during COVID, and it’s especially hard if you’re looking for anything romantic.” But have no fear, @missed.conn.ections is not just a COVID-specific account: “We will definitely continue this account for as long as we remain at Conn (and hopefully find a worthy group to pass it on to when we graduate).”
Now getting to the juicy stuff we have all been wondering: who runs @missed.conn.ections? They receive a lot of DMs guessing at their identity: “Somebody even submitted a form saying ‘is this__.’ We never say yes or no directly, we think it’s fun to let everyone interpret our account however they see it.” The admins do admit that nobody has correctly guessed any of their identities. But they do give one hint to the Enola and Sherlock Holmes among us: “there are several admins of this account, but only two post at the moment. If you look closely, we bet you can tell the difference between those two admin’s posts.” The admins may wear the Cupid cap for the student body, but they have crushes too: “still waiting for someone to write one about one of us though…”
In the spirit of anonymity, I went to my own Instagram account to ask Camels to share what @missed.conn.ections means to them. And the answers were relatable: “We’re all so hilariously lonely together,” one student wrote. Another sent in: “I am less alone in my weird crushes.” I will be honest with you, I have submitted more than one Google form. Some may speculate I am behind posts related to Freeman and/or food, but I shall dare not say. Do I read too much into the fact that I share the same first name with Jane Austen’s perhaps most iconic literary figure? Obviously. Will I, or you for that matter, find our version of Darcy via @missed.conn.ections? TBD, but for now let’s keep spreading the love in a COVID-safe way.
