This S.F. Instagram account is reviving ‘Missed Connections’ (2024)

It was twilight on the last day of Outside Lands. Soft orange lights illuminated the Panhandle stage. An intimate crowd danced to artist Roosevelt’s synth-pop beats. And Bella hit it off with David.

It was the perfect music festival meet-cute— untilBella left before asking for David’s number.

In an earlier era,Bella and David’s interaction would have remained a happy hypothetical. Not so in the age of the internet.

The couple were swappingDMs less than a day later, thanks to an unconventional method: Missed Connections, an Instagram-based matchmaker (of sorts) for the digital age.

Run by the popularInstagram account @OverheardSanFrancisco, Missed Connections’ formula is simple. Someone writes in with what they know about their lost could-be-love, and the account broadcasts the query to its wide audience. If all goes well, these followers-turned-detectives— all 362,000 of them— find the potential paramour, turning a would-have-been-missed connection into a lasting one.

“I loverom-coms, so to me it’s like bringing them into the real world,” said Emily Bernstein, 33, a senior editor at Overheard, a media brand that runs Instagram accounts in several cities. The Sausalito native launched Missed Connections as an “experiment” in 2021, loosely inspired by the erstwhile Craigslist personal ads section of the same name.

Three years later, Overheard receives 5 to 10 Missed Connections requests a week on each of its accounts— and even more after events and festivals like Outside Lands. “It really just took off,” Bernstein said. “We all want joy, and we’re all rooting for joy.”

Bella and David’s story was an ideal example. Bella wrote in with what she knew about her maybe-man. Name? David. Neighborhood? North Beach. Occupation? Robotics engineer.

Bernstein postedscreenshots of Bella’s description on the account’s Instagram story, prompting dutiful followers to comb through their contact lists and even scour LinkedIn for North Beach-based engineers named David. Within half a day, a friend had seen the post and sent it to the David in question, who messaged the account.

Bernstein officially connected the pair in ceremonial fashion: viaInstagram group chat. “Bella, meet David, David meet Bella,” Bernstein wrote. “This is the best possible outcome— robots could not have engineered a better romance.”

It’s too early to tell whetherBella and David will last, but they certainly have a crowd rooting for them: over 7,000 people liked the Instagram post chronicling their Missed Connections saga and hundreds more commented, a mix of well wishes and playful envy. Bella and David declined to be interviewed for this story.

Not every Missed Connections attempt is solved as neatly asBella and David’s; Bernstein estimates a success rate of just over 50%. But the uncertainty is a draw, she said. “That’s part of the appeal, is that it’s live and real.”

The uncertainty can also be a drawback. Asking hundreds of thousands of followers to track down a romantic prospect raises “a bunch of ethical questions,” said Jeff Hanco*ck, a professor of communication at Stanford— especially if the object of the search isn’t interested or doesn’t want to be found.

By definition, the person being searched for is a “nonconsenting, unaware participant,” Hanco*ck said. And if that person is from a vulnerable group, that lack of consent could be dangerous. “If the missed connection is a young female, and you’re about to unleash a couple hundred thousand people, many of them older men, have they considered the risks of that?” Hanco*ck said.

After all,Craiglist’s personal ads page, of which Missed Connections was a subgroup, was shut down in 2018 out of fear the message board could be used for sex trafficking.

Missed Connections has led to some misunderstandings in the past— on some occasions, a romantic interest has been successfully located, but revealed to be in a relationship or even married, Bernstein said.

To avoid these miscommunications and minimize risks, Bernstein said she is always “one step ahead in theDMs” before posting anything publicly. She won’t reveal anyone’s profile picture or full name without their permission, for example. She also screens requests before posting them to make sure the couple had a legitimate romantic interaction —“‘I saw this hot person in a blue T-shirt in the park’” doesn’t count, she said.

“We’re not going to just stalk hot people, because that’s kind of creepy,” Bernstein said. “There’s got to be some kind of interaction for there to be consent.”

But when done thoughtfully, Hanco*ck said Missed Connections can be a force for good. Despite the seeming novelty of itsInstagram-based platform, Hanco*ck sees Missed Connections as the latest iteration in a long lineage of using media to bring people together— like Craigslist before it and newspaper personal ads sections before that.

“It’s so easy to focus on the technology,” Hanco*ck said, “but this problem is a human one— it’s that ‘I didn’t reach out when I was there with you.’”

At a time when dating apps are ubiquitous and romantic prospects are theoretically just a swipe away, Missed Connections’ ongoing appeal is evidence of people’s “age-old” need for spontaneous, in-person connection, Hanco*ck said.

“It’s a reminder that despite having the technology to connect in all those different ways, we still yearn for those moments of physical chemistry,” he said.

Missed Connections has already yielded some long-term relationships, Bernstein said. One San Francisco couple that the account connected reached out a year and a half later— with pictures of the happy couple at a dog park.

If and when Missed Connections yields its first wedding, Bernstein said she intends to officiate the ceremony.

“If Missed Connections teaches anything, it’s just to be vulnerable and put yourself out there,” Bernstein said. “It’s always in the last place you’d expect.”

Reach Maliya Ellis: maliya.ellis@hearst.com