There are also dozens and dozens of success stories; many couples have emailed me with their original posts. I love reading these stories, but confess I am not as interested in drawing them as the unfinished, elusive ones.

I usually draw in silence, but listen to music or public radio when I'm painting, after all the important decisions have been made.

Someone wrote to me asking me to illustrate a missed connection that "hasn't happened yet." This guy has seen the same girl waiting at a bus stop on his morning commute for weeks, and has been trying to find a way to approach her. He thought it would be fun to put up a Missed Connections poster [of my painting] on the corner where she waits and see what happens. It is kind of an intriguing idea but there's something a bit too manipulative about it for my liking. It's a fine line between being creative and stalking!

Some people have recognized their friends in my paintings, but I'm not directly responsible for any hooking up as far as I know!

I have had people come to the site from all over the world. The US and Canada predominantly, but also Brazil and South Africa and Greece and Indonesia and Hong Kong and Ireland and Argentina and Spain and Israel and Australia.

There are more than a few messages from lonely people wondering why they never find themselves described...I illustrated one, "How come no one ever misses me?" They kill me, those.

I toyed with making portraits based on people's discarded shopping lists found on the street, or old diaries bought on eBay, or other forms of borrowed stories. When I stumbled across the Missed Connections listings, I knew immediately I'd found it.