The, despite the world falling apart, ad revenue shrinking and entire swaths of the economy shutting down, has maintained its commitment to the most revered section of our paper: the I Saw You section. Because if we stopped printing I Saw Yous, then who would we be? Barbarians? Animals? TheStill, I couldn't help but feel that it felt a bit weird in the midst of the lockdown: Weren't we being told to see people as little as possible? Was "I Saw You" sending the wrong message?And so I took a crack at what an "I Didn't See You" section might look like, complete with "Cheers" and "Jeers."Because I-Saw-You-Writing is not considered an essential business, I wrote this myself, without the benefit of actually seeing or experiencing anything.Ifdidn't see something, say something: Email

I Thought I Might Have Seen You, Maybe



I saw you, I think, (maybe?) at the grocery store, dutifully pushing a cart stacked high with cans of garbanzo beans. I mean, it might have been you? The “you” I saw at Safeway had a vaguely similar build to you, give or take 15 pounds. Maybe?



I could never forget that smile, radiant and wry. Though, to be frank, I couldn’t really tell if that even was your smile in the cereal aisle, considering half your face was covered in n95-graded polypropylene fiber.



Your eyes never lost that rich shade of emerald green — though I couldn’t quite tell what shade your eyes were in this case, considering I was standing more than six feet (two cart lengths!) away and considering my own mask had fogged my glasses up into a bleary haze.



And your hair! — shimmering, golden, luxurious in my memory! — was absolutely nothing like your hair I saw that day. Let’s be frank, your hair at the grocery store was looking pretty dismal, all long and scraggly, like you haven’t had a salon appointment in months.



But if, by some chance, it was you: get a hold of me. I was the one at the grocery store wearing a mask, looking completely unrecognizable.

I Saw You, Against Medical Guidance





You were as hot as ever. (“You’ve got a fever of 103!” Remember that Foreigner song?! ;) )



For the first time, you didn’t even complain about the taste or smell of my cooking. You honestly seemed a bit choked up to see me. Did I take your breath away?



If you want to see me again, my new temporary address is 101 West 8th Ave. I really feel we shared something special — even, dare I say it, novel . I saw you. All the doctors and experts and even the governor himself couldn’t keep me away!You were as hot as ever. (“You’ve got a fever of 103!” Remember that Foreigner song?! ;) )For the first time, you didn’t even complain about the taste or smell of my cooking. You honestly seemed a bit choked up to see me. Did I take your breath away?

I didn’t see you.I didn’t flirt with you about the book you weren’t reading at the coffee shop. I didn’t see you sizing up the second-hand scarves at Goodwill. I didn’t catch you eying me from across the student union building. We never exchanged business cards at the museum event that didn’t happen.I didn’t admire you admiring your own delts in the mirror at the YMCA, as I wasn’t working out on the elliptical machine, because our trips to the gym never happened.I didn’t feel a thrilling jolt last Sunday when my hand didn’t touch yours as you didn’t pass me the offering plate at the canceled church service neither of us went to. I didn’t see you shyly scrolling through your phone at the appetizers table at last weekend’s house party, because the table was never set with appetizers that were never cooked for a party that was never thrown.I didn’t watch you dancing at nYne like nobody was watching. Nobodywatching, but nobody was dancing, either. You weren’t singing along to the music at the Whitey Morgan show last month at the Knitting Factory, and neither was Whitey Morgan.Everywhere is too crowded, so nobody goes anywhere anymore.You: A person of unknown attributes and traits. Me: a person of attributes and traits you won’t get to know.I can’t help but feel that we didn’t make a connection — even a brief one — when we didn’t meet that uneventful night. Maybe it’s fate that drew us apart; maybe it’s destiny that we’ll never know what we didn’t have.If you feel the same, maybe we can never talk about some of the cool events that aren’t happening and, some upcoming Friday night, if you’re in the mood, we can stay apart and do nothing separately.Who knows: if we really never get to know each other at all, we could both be “filing singly” this time next year.