231: Time to Save the World
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It was one of those jobs that could either fill you with a sense of despair or make you feel like you love the world and fill you with a sense of mission every day. Michael Bomiya chose the second path. I always ask people like, "Are you married? Are you dating? Is it serious? What are you looking for?" Michael Bomiya runs the personal ads for a weekly paper, the Chicago Reader, and he takes it so to heart that he is constantly talking to people who place the ads. He not only tells them how to fix their ads so they can find the kind of person they might want, he remembers them. If he talks to somebody else who might like them, he tells that person to look up their ad. If somebody called me and said, "Is there an ad that I should answer this week?" and they told me a little bit about what they're looking for, I think that off the top of my head I could say, "Yeah, here are three people that should be responsive." How many of the people in the person else do you know personally? Like, have you talked to yourself? Well, I try really hard to not be involved, dozens. Dozens, yeah. (music) You know, and I keep, like, lots of notes in my office too in terms of, "Well, here's this woman, and she's looking for a date, so I'll give her a call and go." You know, here's this guy, he's in this week, you should call him. I'm not supposed to do that, but I do it anyhow because I just can't help myself. (music) In a way, it's hard to believe that the perfect person ended up in that job. Three years back, Michael noticed in the missed connections section of the person else. You know that section where people say, "I saw you on the Clark Street bus, our eyes locked, you know, call me." There was this guy who was taking out one missed connections ad after another. Five of them, ten of them, fifteen of them. He had people that he would see on the train. You were the Asian woman in the purple dress, you were reading Anne Rand. Or, "I saw you at Game Keepers, you were the Brownhead girl, your hair was in a ponytail, you were wearing an Ohio State sweatshirt." Fifteen ads, like fifteen ads. He would see women all over town, Wicker Park, Bucktown, the trains up to O'Hare, at O'Hare, on flights back from places to come back to Chicago. And it was just getting crazy, and he really, really meant them, they were very, very earnest ads. He'd come in sometimes, usually he'd email ads to me, or he'd give them to me over the phone. I would talk to him over the phone at least twice a week. Do you ever see him? Oh yeah, I saw him a couple times, cute. Oh yeah, yes, very cute. But just really, really quiet. And I think some people find quiet to be creepy, but he was quiet kind of like he didn't want to impose on anybody by having conversation with them. That he felt that he wasn't an interesting person. And I think that he was a very interesting person. Michael had given these little pep talks. He encouraged them to start speaking to these women instead of just, you know, seeing them and then taking out an ad. And weeks past of this and months past. And finally, Michael just got tired, and he wrote him this letter, told him to make 20 copies, carry them with them wherever he goes. This is what I wrote. It reads, "To whom it may concern, my name is Mike Baume, I run the personal ad department at the reader, at the matches. The gentleman who handed you this note is named Bill. I've come to know Bill very well. In many ways, he reminds me of my father, quiet, decent, dedicated, someone who probably falls under the radar for most people. He needs a drink, smokes. He's close to his parents and his siblings.
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