The Saddest Map In America

I never understood the concept of missed connections on craigslist. Honestly, what's the chance of two people meeting each other, forgetting to swap numbers, and then both going onto craigslist to search/post in the missed connections category?<p>It just seems like such an overwhelming statistical improbability that such a missed connection would ever be fulfilled through craigslist, I don't see why anyone would even bother posting.

Why is this sad? Because Walmart is the most cited location?<p>Seems great to me. People are reaching out. Would be more depressing if they just decided to not do anything about it.<p>Plus this only has relevance to craigslist users. Seems like a fun conversation piece but certainly isn't the anything-est anything in America.

Indiana's most cited location for a missed connection is "at home." How does that make sense?

There's a serious selection bias in this study; it also requires that the person thinks the object of their fascination is likely to check Craigslist. So,... yeah.

I'll take a crack at explaining the Colorado label.<p>People here leave the Denver/Boulder area and head west into the mountains every weekend. The Sunday afternoon drive back is a miserable jam.<p>Some of those mountain destinations are a pretty far drive, so if you're one of those who came here for the skiing, climbing and mountain biking (and judging by dating sites, most people here are) then you're making some stops for fuel and caffeine in some mountain town, wearing your ski outfit or bike shorts.<p>If that's the explanation, I don't know why the label wouldn't be “trail” though.

Pennsylvania's "convenience store" label should just say Wawa. That's half the missed connections posts in Philadelphia.

I was just shocked that Nevada wasn't "Playa". Seriously, the missed connections post-Burning Man are amazing.<p>"You were wearing a flamethrower with bright pink hair and green blinking boots while you were riding on top of the bus made to look like a disco elephant..."

Proud to live in South Carolina.

What I don't get is the states where it's at a bar. I can understand how it's weird to talk to people in some of those other places but a bar is an explicitly social environment. If people didn't want to talk to others, they'd be drinking at home for far less money. As cliche as it is, "hey, can I buy you a drink" still works as an ice breaker.

Seems like a pretty small sample size - only 100 per state? I'm not familiar with how Craigslist works for this, but is there any reason why you couldn't select thousands and get better results (look for common words, rank them, etc). Seems like the variation would be pretty high...

How is "the car" Georgia's most common missed connection? Hitchhikers? I can't think of anything else.

Here is a higher resolution image: <a href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/files/slideshow/2013/02/118690-116662.png" rel="nofollow">http://www.psychologytoday.com/files/slideshow/2013/02/11869...</a>

"You prefer 91 octane for your car as well? Nice"

Dammit, Indiana, there you go making me cringe in the news again. At home? What does that even <i>mean</i>?

Why do they say "California is an actual self-parody"?<p>I'd much prefer to meet someone at 24 Hour Fitness than Wal*mart...

That is a depressing depressing map.

Rhode Island always keeps it classy. Though I'm honestly surprised it wasn't Dunkin Donuts.

This is Reddit Material, sad to see it Making Page 1 on HN :(

Chicago's keeping it classy with "TRAIN".

Next, we should see a map with the worst traffic. Who funds these studies? Are they really necessary? Especially with the bias towards craigslist users?

This is only sad for 3 reasons:<p>1) Somebody spent the time, effort and likely funding to do an aggregate study of a craigslist Missed Encounters board.<p>2) This foolishly unrepresentative sample of the american populace is being referred to as a "scholarly study".<p>3) The author of this article is using this to make broad generalizations about the american social atmosphere based on the aforementioned unrepresentative sample.<p>I suppose i should sit back and watch this silliness get plastered around facebook ad nauseum as people who don't know anyone who knew craigslist has a "missed encounters" page talk about the facts of their states' social climate.