As I was browsing craigslist yesterday, dreaming of fixing up a vintage Alfa Romeo on my annual income of $250, I wandered over to my favorite section of the site: Missed Connections.

In case you’re not familiar with the concept, missed connections forums allow people to post about mystery figures they have glimpsed and with whom they hope to reunite. You can live with the hope of once again meeting that “Elegant Lesbian Shopping For Crawdads,” provided she reads your ad.

Sometimes people use the service to send out messages in bottles to people they see every day. Tell that chisel-chinned hottie at Starbucks that when he makes your latte, he breaks your heart.

Even if you know your fascination won’t be reciprocated, you can use the service to get something off your chest.

“Hey Pregnant Brunette Working at Wendy’s — thanks for the STD.”

The fact of the matter is, reading other people’s social epiphanies, fleeting desires, is the Grover Cleveland of guilty pleasures. Not the best by any means, but you’ll be back. I can even understand the appeal of posting: Sure, it’s completely ineffective, but sometimes an ephemeral vision of a girl on a bus or a Peruvian stock clerk jostling your arm at Safeway can indelibly mark the fabric of your day.

And where else are we more changed than at Stanford? With only 1,600 undergraduates, I’ve made a lot of connections, but there are also a few memorable ones I’ve missed.

You: A tall, well-built undergraduate with rippling Fabio-esque locks, passing a gaggle of middle-aged German women on your way to a film screening. As you approached them, one interrupted their quiet conversation to scream: “Pony hair!”

Me: Slightly sweaty, running late for section, turning on my heel to discreetly follow them halfway to the bookstore. Apparently they were talking about pony-hair shoes. Between you and me, I have my doubts.

You: Riding your bike from Meyer Library around midnight, wearing helmet, elbow pads and a surgical mask. You screeched to a stop and lit a cigarette, lifting the mask to take deep drags, then biked off into the night, exhaling through your nose with abandon.

Me: Offering my trusty Bic. You did not accept.

You: Strolling down Mayfield on the first bone-baking day of spring, periodically stopping in front of trees to wonder aloud what they were thinking about. You paused at one whose roots sneaked under the concrete to encroach upon a streetlight. Were the telephone poles jealous, you asked no one in particular.

Me: Breathing in the cherry blossoms, warm.

You: Driving a dark gray SUV with the license plate “H4TL35S”. I’m not sure if the plate is a CS major’s idea of a joke or whether it was the work of some uber1337 hax0r at the DMV, but you were not, in fact, wearing a hat.

Me: Making an illegal left turn onto Palm Drive.

You: Speed walking under the Braun Music Center archway on a Tuesday morning, slurping away at a ceramic bowl full of Frosted Mini-Wheats with a metal spoon. You stopped by the post office and sucked down the last dregs of milk, spraying droplets on your goatee, then hid the bowl and spoon under a low shrubbery. When I checked again five hours later, they were gone.

Me: Eating yogurt, with a lamely plastic utensil.

You: Gazing imperially, arms clanging with silver rings and bracelets too numerous to count, batting tinsel eyelashes, boldly geometrical neon shawl clutched around your shoulders, three-inch acrylic nails a-clatter. Your bearing is regal and silence roars — Empress of Pangea, High Holy Priestess of immortality and office supplies.

Me: Buying books. Nervous.

You: An elderly Asian man, carrying a briefcase and an armful of binders, galloping at breakneck speed from Green Library toward the Oval. Then you stopped on a dime, dropped your briefcase and binders on the ground and circled the “Large Torso” statue in front of the Cummings Art Building five or six times, running your fingertips over the sculpture’s disembodied hips. Gathered everything up and resumed your sprint.

Me: Reading “Farewell to Arms” on the art library steps.

You: Barreling down Mayfield on your bike on a Thursday night, steering with one hand and using the other to balance an overflowing red cup; the drink sloshing over the sides left an acrid alcoholic mist in your wake. You biked straight into the open door of a cop car parked on Frenchman’s Way and slurred: “G’evenin’, occifer!” then burped and continued your flight down Frat Row.

Me: Making eye contact with the puzzled policeman and shrugging with all the sobriety I could muster.

You: Standing on your head in the garden bordering the Slav Dom parking lot, apparently nude, torso blocked by an errant fence. Tan rounded buttocks at eye level, lithe nymph legs stretching into the sky, curled toes melding into crinkling leaves. Also, you are a tree.

Me: Kind of in love with you.

You: Sending in comments, complains, connections of your own (this means you, Pony Hair!). Me: Reachable at klewin@stanford.edu. Grover Cleveland: American president for two non-consecutive terms.