Austin, Texas — A 28-year-old data analyst, Clara Bennett, filed a missing person report with the local police department last Tuesday for Mark “Smooth” Johnson, a 31-year-old barista who allegedly “disappeared without a trace” after their third date. According to officials, Bennett provided a detailed description of Johnson’s alleged last known location: a 500-square-foot emotional support blanket he borrowed from her apartment, which he hasn’t returned in over 60 hours. The incident has sparked a heated debate on the ethics of using public resources to track individuals who may simply lack social skills.
Bennett told reporters she became concerned when Johnson stopped responding to her carefully curated playlist of “boring but cute” animal GIFs. “It’s not like him to ghost during the *peak* of our connection,” she said, adding that their relationship had reached “a critical inflection point” during their third date, which involved a heated argument about whether oat milk ruins lattes. A friend of the couple, Janet, a police officer who declined to disclose her last name, joked that the department’s “Ghosting Unit” is already backlogged with cases like this. “We’ve got people missing since 2019, and here we are worrying about a guy who didn’t say goodbye after a *latte argument*?” she said.
The Austin Police Department responded by issuing a statement clarifying that they “take all reports of interpersonal voids seriously.” Lieutenant Dave Thompson, a 47-year-old man who admitted he’s single due to “overlooking a red flag named ‘TikTok dancing’ during a blind date,” confirmed that detectives are now monitoring Tinder and Bumble for suspicious activity. “We’re treating this as a cold case,” he said. “If Mark’s vanished into thin air, there’s either a very good Wi-Fi signal or a very bad apology.”
As for Johnson, he has yet to comment—or, per Bennett’s claim, *comment at all*. The police have tentatively listed the case as “emotional disappearance, probably,” and plan to send Detective Karen Lopez, a 34-year-old expert in “digital footprints and exes,” to investigate his last known haunts: a local yoga studio and a “maybe-romantic” group chat with his college roommate. Bennett, meanwhile, is considering filing a “property theft” report for the unwashed mug he left behind. “At this point,” she said, “I’d settle for a text. Even a ‘Hey, I’m dead’ would be a improvement.”