u/ccd_foto

Location: sweetleaf

I’m still shaking from the intensity of this missed connection.

You were wearing a fast-fashion shirt from Zara or H&M that was a tasteful brown with horizontal stripes.

You kept making eyes at the objectively attractive girl (OAG) to my left. After your fifth or ninth attempt (I lost count), she looked up and stared into the distance since she was writing an email and was stuck on wording.

You jumped into her line-of-sight and took this as your “signal” to walk over to the coffee bar and aggressively thrust your head through the fern plant to proclaim “You are very gorgeous.” Then you just let that sentence hang there in the open as I looked on. Your complete lack of social ability left my jaw wide open. Only a person making bank in soft development would posseess this amount of complete flirtatious ineptitude. I was smitten.

It took a moment for the OAG to realize what had occurred, and in the moment that she took off her over-the-ear headphones, we locked eyes for maybe .1 of a second. But it was strong and intense.

Then she said “….oh...thank you?” and you fled the scene.

If you see this, shoot me a DM, I have a dope app idea I’d love for you to code, I can tell you definitely live in a computer terminal and would crush this.

P.S. This actually happened. I’m legit still shaken up.

Yes you do, you've just had a crap photographers who didn't pose you correctly. Or get you comfortable in front of the camera.

Having a great photo of yourself has never been more important.

We currently use photos for everything from social media to slack profile pics to whatever you hedonists are getting up to in Bushwick (no shade I'm one of them).

That said, so few people actually invest in good photos.

Most of you are still using pictures that were taken on some iPhone with dirt or grime or whatever on the lens. Honestly, it's embarrassing.

I've worked with over 40 clients in the Greenpoint/Williamsburg area for shoots ranging from family gathering pics to dating pics to more NSFW shoots.

For around the price of just one dinner in Williamsburg I'll entertain you with whats left of my stand up comedy skills and make you forget we're even doing a photoshoot.

If you are in need of great photographs for whatever the reason, shoot me a DM and we can get a shoot on the books.

Sample work provided upon completion of a riddle.

Yes you do, you've just had a crap photographers who didn't pose you correctly. Or get you comfortable in front of the camera.

Having a great photo of yourself has never been more important.

We currently use photos for everything from social media to slack profile pics to whatever you hedonists are getting up to in Bushwick (no shade I'm one of them).

That said, so few people actually invest in good photos.

Most of you are still using pictures that were taken on some iPhone with dirt or grime or whatever on the lens. Honestly, it's embarrassing.

I've worked with over 40 clients in the Greenpoint/Williamsburg area for shoots ranging from family gathering pics to dating pics to more NSFW shoots.

For around the price of just one dinner in Williamsburg I'll entertain you with whats left of my stand up comedy skills and make you forget we're even doing a photoshoot.

If you are in need of great photographs for whatever the reason, shoot me a DM and we can get a shoot on the books.

Sample work provided upon completion of a riddle.

I apologize in advance if this sounds silly, but I had to write something; this kept me up all night.

It happened last night at Pete’s after Mike Tedesco’s set (which was straight fire). You were sitting at the bar and seemed to be on a date with a guy who looked like what John Mayer probably smells like, and not in the good way.

We locked eyes after four very cute girls approached me and asked “did you write that missed connection shitpost on the r/greenpoint subreddit?” And I told them the truth without breaking eye contact with you, “yes, that was me, I’m something of a niche internet micro-celebrity.”

You gave a smirk when I said that. It felt like the universe winking at me... in human form.

Even though you were with the archetypal performative smelly male all night, I could tell we had something special, something not even a veteran reiki healer who doubles as a “medicinal” shaman could replicate at a 9-hour eastern instrument sound bath. I wanted to say hi, but I’m not one to interrupt someone’s date, despite how poorly it was clearly going; you only laughed like 18 times at his jokes. Rookie numbers.

I never got your name, and if I’m being honest, I sort of forgot what you looked like, but the energy, it was real. That only comes around like, once a quarter, or at Mister Sunday.

Shoot me a DM, and maybe we can meet at the trash pick up group and be outwardly altruistic together, and obviously take pics and videos so everyone knows were better than them <3

It happened again.

Same cafe. Sweetleaf. Same place at the bar, two in from the left side when you enter.

You were over in the corner with the designer bag and the chunky sunglasses, performatively reading a book about the macroeconomics of consumer habits while talking on speakerphone to your friend who was having a hard time finding an apartment for less than $6700 a month whilst dining out six days a week.

After you gave her advice to sell feet pics in the r/parkslope subreddit, we locked eyes, and it felt electric. I could feel it throughout my entire body, my essence, my aura, all of it, aligned to the God Frequency of 111Hz. In that moment I swear I would have bought like 19 of your online courses if you were selling some.

Our moment was interrupted by Mike, the Hot Barista, handing me my drink.

“Americano, black, with a sprinkling of love and hope."

Mike’s playing a set at Pete’s Candy Store tonight at 9:30pm, everyone reading this should go, it’s gonna be fun, Mike’s a truly great musician.

Anyways, you kept giving your friend advice, over speakerphone on how to fleece old men in the wealthy parts of Brooklyn out of lots and lots of cash and gold, and I couldn’t help but be enamored by your entrepreneurial spirit. You’re just someone who seems to know what they want and how to get there. I really admire that.

Plus, you seem like a really really mid friend and I love that.

If you see this post, I’ll be at Pete’s Candy Store tonight watching Mike the Hot Barista absolutely shred on stage.

It's 2:05pm on a Tuesday and I’m sitting at the bar in Swetleaf questioning everything.

My work task today is to build out a strategy document for a tentpole client. The firm is a tech company with no product that somehow raised $98m in a pre-seed round. That means they have no product, just an idea.

It isn’t going well.

On top of my inability to craft strategy for something that doesn’t actually exist, either in code or actuality, Mike the hot barista keep laying down absolutely filthy song picks over the aux. I don’t know if it’s his warm brown eyes or the UK heart and soul of Barry Can’t Swim but my body is fully moving to the groove.

As I dance amongst myself like a fool in some Rag & Bone I copped at a sample sale, I notice two girls in dad hats who keep looking at me. After the third time we make eye contact, I begin to panic one of them will make a “Missed Connection at Sweetleaf” post on the Greenpoint subreddit.

This thought fills me with a deep sense of dread because, expectations. What if someone remembers me? What if I am forced via upvotes to ask one of these girls out for a timid first date that will amount to $150 and abject sadness while she posts a retro on her IG about how she just “went on like the worst date of allllllll time” in vocal fry.

This is my hell.

Almost immediately after this neurotic panic attack I venture off into a dream world where I simply do not write this strategy document and lose my job and attempt to move to Europe but my visa is denied. To get by in Greenpoint I eat Jubilee sliders twice a day and overnight oats and question what it means to be a “New Yorker” and how much longer the city can sustain itself with every vendor now transitioning to being “luxury” or “premiere.”

There’s a man next to me taking an all-hands zoom call without headphones. He’s just screaming into his computer screen as his team says “THERE’S A LOT OF BACKROUND NOISE JOHN” over and over because there’s music playing and people having actual conversations. John seems completely unmoored. He could care less. I want to say something but what’s the point. This guy has zero self-awareness whatsoever. In his mind he is at his office and these peasants are up in his space.

I accidentially make eye-contact with the girls across the bar again. I just wanted an americano and to do my work.

Everything is falling apart.

John says something about vibe-coding.

Mike the hot barista puts on some Radiohead.

How did it come to this?

How can people afford to have children in this economy?

Why is Gigi's half chicken $40?

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If you enjoyed this short piece of neo-horror please consider donating to my "Too Poor To Try Gigi's Half Chicken" Fund. All proceeds will go to trying this fancy French rotisserie chicken.