Craigslist may be home to countless crazy personal ads and roommate-seeking solicitations, but now thanks to one romantic Boston gentleman who has quite the way with words, it is also home to the most thoughtful, heartfelt, missed connections posting we've ever seen. (Fair warning: Grab the tissues now.)
"I met you in the rain on the last day of 1972, the same day I resolved to kill myself," the unnamed poster begins, before detailing the time served in Vietnam that left him shaken to the core and alone in a studio apartment "with a fifth of Tennessee rye and the pang of shame permeating the recesses of my soul." After downing the bottle, he "made for the door and vowed, upon returning, that I would retrieve the Smith & Wesson Model 15 from the closet and give myself the discharge I deserved."
After wandering for hours in the rain, he spotted our mystery heroine "wearing a teal ball gown, which appeared to me both regal and ridiculous. Your brown hair was matted to the right side of your face and a galaxy of freckles dusted your shoulders. I'd never seen anything so beautiful."
Recognizing that the woman had clearly been crying, he invited her for coffee and the two quickly dashed over to the counter of a local five-and-dime, where they proceeded to talk like old friends. Turns out, she was crying because she was engaged to a man she simply didn't love, a banker "from some line of Boston nobility," and was out in the rain all dressed up because his parents were hosting a New Year's party that evening.
Excusing himself to use the restroom after an hour of effortless conversation, the Boston gentleman "remember[s] consulting my reflection in the mirror. Wondering if I should kiss you...if I should return to the Smith & Wesson that waited for me. I decided, ultimately, that I was unworthy of the resuscitation this stranger in the teal ball gown had given me and to turn my back on such sweet serendipity would be the real disgrace...My heart thumped in my chest like an angry judge's gavel and a future — our future — flickered in my mind."
But when he returned to the counter, the mystery woman in teal was gone. And though he went back to that counter every day for a year, he never saw her again. To this day, he credits her for saving his life, writing that "ironically, the torture of your abandonment seemed to swallow my self-loathing and the prospect of suicide was suddenly less appealing than the prospect of discovering what had happened in that restaurant. The truth is, I never really stopped wondering."
Now, 42 years later, after the death of his wife and son, he has taken to Craigslist at the suggestion of a friend's "sentimental daughter." He hopes to tell the mystery woman who saved his life that "wherever you've been, wherever you are, and wherever you're going, know this: You're with me still."
Sigh. Maybe we're hopeless romantics, but we truly hope this is authentic and not a viral marketing campaign for a new movie (that should obviously star Ryan Gosling). Because love is real, damn it.
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