I think you saw me, but did you observe me?

For those unfamiliar with Dropout TV, it's a comedy subscription streaming service run by the production company that was formerly CollegeHumor. One of their series is Game Changer which is described as a game show where the game changes every show. Game Changer has been so successful that Dropout launched a Kickstarter for a board game version "Game Changer: Home Edition".

As part of the campaign, Dropout dropped challenges for us backers to participate in. Challenge 309 read, in part, "we need at least 300 PLAYERS to help us bring one of literature’s most classic pairings into the modern age, by writing some missed-connection style PERSONAL ADS, as if they’re from either Sherlock Holmes or Watson, to the other. There are no rules in love, players, but there are rules in this game… so we’ll also award a BONUS POINT for every 50 players who repost their Missed Connection ad on Craigslist (or any other Missed Connection forum) and send us the links to their posts using the form to the right." 

And so, I took up the challenge and created a post titled "I think you saw me, but did you observe me?" on Craigslist on June 5, 2026, but it was flagged for removal VERY QUICKLY. I copy and paste the text of it for your enjoyment below.

My dear handsome gentleman. I saw you about to cross the street with your doctor's bag initialed JHW and I took just a moment to not just see you, but to observe you.

Your alluring body has impressive musculature that shows how you were once a lithe rugby player.

Your powerful moustache proves the kind of astute mind you possess--even if it is, perhaps, not the kind of deductive that mine is.

Your eyes--which I could have sworn glanced my way and made my heart skip a beat (though you'd likely tell me that was not at all in line with the most recent research in cardiology)--shine with the honor that truly marks your very being, but do portray a sadness you cannot hide.

Do I dare hope that that sadness relates to your missing companion of 221B Baker?

How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth? 

Well, I suppose I've made a mess of the truth as of late, but here is my best attempt at it: my feelings for you are deeper than Reichenbach Falls is tall.

But there is more I must confess.

I knew that the dying Englishwoman was a hoax, yet I allowed you to go. I should not have tricked you with such a cruel ruse--but I feared that my known affection for you would endanger you as long as I lived--so I had to not.

I hope you will one day find it in your heart to forgive me. Perhaps further observations of you will help me deduct if you would consider such a possibility (after all, it is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data). Or, perhaps, one of these observations of you will become an observation of me. Afterall, you know my methods.

(Prompt by Dropout TV)

Illustration of the Sherlock Holmes adventure The Greek Interpreter, which appeared in The Strand Magazine in September, 1893, electronic file downloaded from Wikimedia.