"Spaghetti Couple": An Im-pasta-ble Love Story

The truth behind Reed’s legendary Missed Connections

One small misstep, and suddenly the bowl of spaghetti flies out of her hands and splatters onto the jorts of the woman in front of her. But to her surprise, what should have resulted in a series of apologies and a strong avoidance of eye contact instead blossomed into a well-documented and highly popular Missed Connections love story. The only issue with ‘Spaghetti Couple’? They don’t exist.

The Quest sat down with the two women who created ‘Spaghetti Couple’ to finally conclude their fictional love story. ‘Spaghetti Couple’ will be referred to as ‘A’ and ‘B’ to protect their anonymity.

Are you dating, and if so, how long have you been together?

(Silence)

Or maybe you’re just friends?

A: (Both laugh) Yeah, we’re just friends. We’re not dating.

What inspired the Missed Connection then?

B: I think the initial conversation was something like, ‘Missed Connections have been kind of boring lately.’

A: Yeah. And then from what I remember, a lot of our friends needed some hope for romance.

B: Yeah pretty much.

A: We didn’t think anyone would really care about it. We just thought it’d be funny because we enjoy reading the Missed Connections every week–

B: And we read them with our friends out loud–

A: So we thought it’d be fun just kind of to have–

B: And it’s fun to read.

Does your friend group know that you’re ‘Spaghetti Couple’?

B: Yes. For the most part I think. There are a few who don’t.

A: I’m pretty sure they all do at this point. 

B: They were all very upset.

A: They had various reactions, yeah.

Do you have an example?

A: Well, they told us that we killed love–

B: That love is dead, and we killed it.

A: That’s their favorite thing to say to us about that.

B: It did instill hope in them.

A: Yeah, they all got so excited–

B: And then we were like, ‘Ha ha ha.’

A: Which is understandable [for them to get upset]. I would’ve felt the same way.

B: Oh for sure.

(Both laugh)

Did you expect such a large reaction to the Missed Connection then?

B: Not really–

A: No.

B: Cause we were just doing it for fun, and then in the following SB info there were a few Missed Connections about it, like ‘We need updates.’ And we were like, ‘Oh–

A: ‘What are we gonna do?’

B: ‘We gotta give the people what they want.’ So then we continued the story a little bit.

A: But we mainly just made it for our friends because we thought it’d be funny to read out loud. We did not expect anyone else to really care.

Why spaghetti?

(Both laugh)

A: I really don’t know why–

B: You know exactly why–

A: Wait I do? (Both laugh) What is it?

B: Well I think the story developed because [A] dropped — what was it? Chips?

A: No, it was rice. I dropped a whole plate of rice on myself.

B: And then our friend helped you pick it up, and then they were like, ‘Now we’re married.’

In unison: Wait no, that was after [the Missed Connection]!

A: I think I just thought it’d be kind of funny.

B: Yeah we were like, ‘Spaghetti and jorts–

A: But I couldn’t tell you why.

(Both laugh)

That was the aesthetic you were going for? Spaghetti and jorts?

A: I think my thought was that with spaghetti, it’s a messy food. It’d be hard to clean up–

B: And then picking it up with your hands–

A: It would splatter! That’s just real commitment.

B: I think we were also like, no one’s going to believe this.

A: Oh yeah. No, we did not think anyone would believe it.

B: Cause the jorts, and then picking it up with your hands? We were like, ‘There’s no way.’

A: We were trying to make it kind of ridiculous and not super believable. I would’ve believed it to be fair though. 

B: I would’ve hoped.

Was there another driving factor? In your email you said you were trying to instill some hope for romance in your fellow Reedies.

B: Personally one of my favorite things is reading Missed Connections every week, especially with my friends, and I find it a lot of fun. We wanted to write this for our friends’ enjoyment but also just for everyone’s. We thought it would be kind of fun to have something kind of hopeful and silly and cute in the Missed Connections.

A: And initially it was for our friends, but we figured other people were probably feeling some lack of love lately.

What message would you like to send to Reedies this Valentine’s Day?

A: Be careful with your spaghetti, I guess. That’s a good tip.

B: I don’t want [the Reed community] finding out that it wasn’t real, to cause them to think that love is dead.

A: Love is alive!

B: Love is alive!

A: Love is alive! I mean, we still love each other as friends. That’s important.

B: I would help you pick up your spaghetti if you dropped it.

A: Absolutely! Even if you spilled it on my jorts, I would still get it for you, and I would not be mad. You know, there’s Tide. Stains come out.

B: I’d still support you.

A: Yeah, so love is alive. That’s what I would want Reed to know.

(Both laugh)

What else do you want readers to know?

B: I think it’s funny that we would write them before our juggling class. That’s just a funny anecdote. You don’t have to include that, but just sitting outside our juggling class, talking about spaghetti jorts.

A: We would write them while waiting for class to start like the true clowns we are.

Did you tell your friends before or after writing the follow-up Missed Connection?

A: I think some of them knew–

B: And then some of them didn’t.

A: Some of them [found out] just because we were laughing too hard, and they were like, “What’s up?”

B: But I don’t think all of our friends were there that night when we were reading Missed Connections, so then some people still didn’t know. So then in the weeks to come, we’d be like, “Wait. Do you know?”

A: And we would tell them, and they’d be crushed.

B: Some of them thought it was funny.

A: That’s fair. That’s fair. It was like 50/50.

And why are you choosing now to tell the world that ‘Spaghetti Couple’ does not exist?

A: We debated whether we should continue the story.

B: There’s just no where else to go with it–

A: Because we wrapped it up–

B: When we wrote the update, ‘We got spaghetti. Thanks for your support.’ I don’t know if we were ever really going to [reveal the secret], but this was just an opportunity I guess. Because I feel like we had kind of – not forgotten about it, but we weren’t going to do anything more with it.

A: And then we got the email from Segovia, asking if she could give the Quest our names, and I guess we just figured–

B: Now or never! Now’s our chance.

A: Yeah. We figured, might as well.

Did you guys go and get spaghetti?

A: Did we ever go and get spaghetti?

B: I mean we get pasta a lot, but it’s never spaghetti.

A: We had macaroni noodles last night. That was fun.

B: I don’t think we’re ever eaten spaghetti together.

A: No, penne a lot.

B: Penne a lot, yeah–

A: But never spaghetti.