With a record-breaking enrollment of 34,885 students walking around, the University is just full of “missed connections.”

Odds are, we don’t know most of our thousands of peers, but we are definitely trying to connect with them. Of course we interact with one another in classes, groups, organizations, charities, work, sporting events and going downtown, but we also see strangers every day walking around.

And if eye contact is any cue, we want to connect with these intriguing faces.

Athens is just full of Web sites aimed at establishing these connections. We want to share crazy quotes and conversations on OverheardinAthens.com, and for images that defy description, OverseeninAthens.com.

A lot of students are jumping on BackNoise during their classes and chatting behind the scenes, although mostly anonymous.

But what about that special person who catches your eye? How do you connect with them? If you’re shy like me, you wouldn’t walk up to them and ask for a name and number.

So, what other choice do you have? Hope that you run into that hot guy at the bus stop again, same time and same place on Thursday?

As a journalist, I’m always looking for interesting stories. And a tip a few years ago has led me to the feast-or-famine world of “missed connections” on the Athens Craigslist. Initially, the postings were sparse.

Now, there are multiple posts daily.

During the 80′s, my mom used to see this guy driving through Buckhead. He drove a mint green Saab with a vanity plate that read “Fun4U.” Everyone knew him by the vanity plate, but no one knew who he was.

Each time, he was with a different woman. They were intrigued enough by the message he put out into the world to go out with him.

And how can we forget personals in the newspaper. Remember when the classifieds used to be interesting?

People would post in the “messages” section and try to reconnect with someone through a short message that only the other person would understand.

Well, the Athens Craigslist “missed connections” section is the new classifieds. Or vanity plate, depending on how you look at it.

Your first impression might be like mine: Craigslist? Creepy! And yes, some of the subject lines read more trashy than genuine. I’m not talking w4m, m4w, m4m, w4w, miscellaneous romances, and casual or strictly platonic encounters. Missed connections is the mostly innocent side of the personals.

But in truth, reading through the missed connections reveals the unfinished stories of the University’s shyest students.

Boy sees girl reading at by a fountain on campus. Girl looks up and smiles. Boy kicks himself for not talking to her and posts a vignette on Craigslist.

Judging by the lack of responses, most students aren’t logging on to Craigslist to see if they are a “missed connection.” Whether this is due to lack of interest in the person or lack of Craigslist knowledge remains to be seen.

But I often wonder how the stories end. Do these people care, or ever find each other? Can a Craigslist missed connection end up in bliss? Or is it doomed to fail from the start because people find Craigslist cliché?

We are obviously trying to share and connect with others around us. I’m going to throw out some advice, and try to stick to it myself: speak!

Say hello. Get the name of that cute girl you talk to for a few minutes. Establish a legitimate connection.

Whether it goes anywhere or not, at least you will know rather than waiting for a possibly hopeless Craigslist connection. You never know what will come of just talking to someone.

After growing up listening to stories about Fun4U, I wonder what ever happened to the owner of that mint green Saab.

- Ashley Strickland is a staff photographer for The Red & Black