History Main / MissedHimByThatMuch

* ''Film/MinorityReport'' features an awesome sequence with Anderton and Agatha avoiding the Pre-Crime cops, utilizing Agatha's future-seeing prediction to place themselves at the right place and right time for seemingly random events to hide them from the cops. (Example: Agatha tells Anderton to stop right in the middle of the mall, in plain view. Just as the cops stop at an overhead walkway to look down, a man with balloons blocks their view of Anderton.)

* ''Film/MinorityReport'' features an awesome sequence with Anderton and Agatha avoiding the Future Crime cops, utilizing Agatha's future-seeing prediction to place themselves at the right place and right time for seemingly random events to hide them from the cops. (Example: Agatha tells Anderton to stop right in the middle of the mall, in plain view. Just as the cops stop at an overhead walkway to look down, a man with balloons blocks their view of Anderton.)

* ''Series/{{iCarly}}'': In "[[Recap/ICarlyS02Ep20ITwins iTwins]]", Sam is bummed when her girly twin sister Melanie visits, but Freddie assumes she and Carly are pranking him again and assumes Melanie is just Sam in disguise. Throughout the episode, Sam leaves right before Melanie arrives and vice versa, because she wants to avoid her as much as possible. In the end, when Freddie ''still'' refuses to believe it and forces Sam to admit Melanie doesn't exist, he leaves right before Melanie actually does show up.
* ''Series/ILoveLucy'': In "Lucy Misses The Mertzes", the Ricardos and Mertzes walk in and out of the Westport, Connecticut train station, just barely missing one another time and again.

* The Polkaroo, from ''Series/ThePolkaDotDoor'', is another kid-show example. Justified in that the character was played by one of the show's two hosts, so naturally only the other host could interact with him.

* Used in a heartbreakingly sad way in the music video for "Whiskey Lullaby" by Music/BradPaisley and Allison Krauss. The cheating wife spends the first part of the video desperately searching for her husband so she can apologize. She keeps missing him as he sinks behind a car in an alleyway as she drives past and gets kicked out of a crowded bar on one side while she's looking on the other. If you've listened to [[DownerEnding the song]], you can guess what happens next. [[spoiler: She doesn't find him in time to keep him from committing suicide. She follows him shortly thereafter.]]

* Sora and Donald Duck / Goofy from ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsI'', the first time they're in Traverse Town.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'' your character is looking for their father who left the Vault right before you. Every time you pick up his path, you learn that he was ''just'' there not a few hours before.

* ''VideoGame/Stay2018'': Quinn rushes into a restaurant [[spoiler:just as his unnamed love interest is leaving, a crowd of people separating them.]]

* The first [[AllThereInTheManual sound stage]] of ''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaAs'' had both the protagonists and the [[HeroAntagonist Wolkenritter]] visiting [[HotSpringsEpisode a newly opened hot spring]] and missing a chance meeting with one another. This was mostly thanks to Nanoha and Fate spending [[ShipTease most of their time there washing each other's backs]] instead of wandering around the place with [[ThoseTwoGuys Alisa and Suzuka]]; Vita spends some time in the bath, with Arisa and Suzuka meeting Hayate, Shamal and Signum.
* This happens in the ''Manga/DeathNote'' anime; Light and Misa both wonder who the other Kira is while drinking in the same coffee house.
* In the ''Manga/RurouniKenshin'' anime, Kaoru and Yahiko ''barely'' miss Kenshin when they arrive to Kyoto in search of him... However, few seconds after missing him they meet Misao, and thanks to her they're reunited with him very soon. (Note that this didn't happen in the manga, however.)

* During the Soul Society arc of ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'', the separated group are looking for each other, while Chad accidentally saves Ichigo by blowing up a group of Shinigami mooks without seeing who they were chasing.
* When Marco arrives to Argentina in ''Anime/ThreeThousandLeaguesInSearchOfMother'' every time he went to a certain place, his mother had already left, missing her at every opportunity until the very last episode.
* Happens to Terry and Candy at least twice in ''Manga/CandyCandy''.
* In ''Manga/HonooNoAlpenRose'', [[spoiler: Jeudi and Leon ''barely'' miss the NotQuiteDead Lundi as they leave Austria and return to Switzerland. They find each other two chapters later, though.]]
* In ''Literature/ACertainMagicalIndex'', Accelerator ends up hanging out with Index and Touma hangs out with Last Order at the mall. At the end of the day, the two girls reunite with their proper guardians. Index and Last Order move past each other without noticing the other, and Touma and Accelerator do not see each other either.
** Up until [[spoiler:World War III]], the story manages to prevent Accelerator and Touma from directly interacting with each other. One arc has the two trying to save Accelerator's MoralityPet Last Order while not recognizing each other's voices over the phone. The side story that introduces Shiage has the two obliviously working together to rescue Misuzu Misaka from a gang infiltrating the college she was attending, with the blackout that the gang causes preventing the two from seeing each other.

* Chapter 45 of ''Manga/KaguyaSamaLoveIsWar'' features a shot where Kaguya and Shirogane are literally within five feet of each other while rushing in opposite directions, not seeing each other because Kaguya just got out of a taxi and neither having any idea that the other was looking for them (Kaguya's cellphone wasn't working, so she couldn't tell everyone that she had already snuck out of her house).
** This setup's payoff turns out to be [[spoiler: that the cast had already learned she'd snuck out, Shirogane was in too much of a rush to notice her because he was headed to where he'd predicted she'd end up - correctly, and their other friends were so close behind they picked Kaguya and Shirogane up in the very taxi she'd gotten out of]].
* In the final episode of ''Manga/{{Mitsudomoe}}'', an old lady reminisces about the time she met the Marui triplets and their father--just as the older versions of them walk right past her.
* ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'':
** In ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureDiamondIsUnbreakable'':, shortly after meeting Reimi and learning about the serial killer living in Morioh, Koichi mindlessly wanders into the street and nearly gets hit by a car... being driven by the killer he's looking for, Yoshikage Kira.
** PlayedForLaughs in ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureGoldenWind'': During the search for Polpo's fortune, Giorno and Mista get split up while pursuing a Stand-using assassin due to Giorno staying back to act as a lookout. They get further separated when Mista ends up getting into a TraintopBattle with the assassin on top of a delivery truck that's headed to the top of Capri island. After dealing with the assassin, Mista gets the driver to go back to the marina so he can report in to Bruno... and just after he's left, Giorno jumps into truck's passenger seat and tells the driver to take him to the top of the island so he can find his friend.
** ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureStardustCrusaders'': In the "Empress" arc, Joseph has his arm possessed by Empress and is frantically searching for Polnareff for help. However due to Nena constantly distracting him with her good looks, Polnareff never sees him and at one point the two are separated by a mere carpet.
* ''Manga/StoryOfADumbPrefectAndHighSchoolGirlWithInappropriateSkirtLength'': During the SchoolFestival, Akina talks Izubuchi into looking for the mysterious man in a white lab coat who saved him in the past (actually [[spoiler:Tougo's dad]]), but just as he's about to find him, the man takes off his lab coat at his wife's urging.
* This happens throughout chapter 9 of ''Manga/{{Dandadan}}'', as Momo and Ken search for the other during lunch break to hang out but keep barely missing each other. Eventually they think the other one is avoiding them, but eventually reunite with an AccidentalKiss at the end.
* The ''Literature/AscendanceOfABookworm'' anime has a bonus episode adapting Justus and Eckhart's fruitless search for information about Myne in the lower city, during which Justus was hoping to get as far as exchanging a few words with Myne herself. Said episode adds two occasions upon which Justus just barely misses an opportunity that weren't in source material: arriving at the Gilberta Company to give it a look-over right after Myne leaves it and missing her coming back from grocery shopping with her mother because a loaf of bread big enough to obscure her face was left in her care.

** [[Recap/StarWarsTheCloneWarsS7E11Shattered "Shattered"]]: After [[spoiler:learning from Maul that Sidious is grooming Anakin to become his apprentice]], Ahsoka joins a meeting of Jedi Generals via hologram and, after reporting on the Siege of Mandalore, asks if she can speak to Anakin with the intent of warning him. Unfortunately, Mace Windu had already sent Anakin away [[spoiler:to give a progress report to Chancellor Palpatine - the very meeting where Palpatine will reveal his true identity as Sidious to Anakin, setting off the final chain of events leading to Anakin joining the Sith.]] Since this is the same Jedi meeting seen in ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'', Mace sent Anakin away no more than a minute before Ahsoka appeared.

* In 1985, Robert Ballard mounted two expeditions to find the wreck of the ''UsefulNotes/RMSTitanic''. The first one was unsuccessful, but they later found that they had actually passed within a few hundred yards of the wreck. A previous failed expedition sponsored by Jack Grimm also came within two miles of it.

The trope's name is a riff on one of [[Series/GetSmart Maxwell Smart's]] many catch phrases, but he never actually engaged in it himself.

* The first [[AllThereInTheManual sound stage]] of ''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaAs'' had both the protagonists and the [[HeroAntagonist Wolkenritter]] visiting [[HotSpringsEpisode a newly opened hot spring]] and missing a chance meeting with one another. This was mostly thanks to Nanoha and Fate spending [[ShipTease most of their time there washing each other's backs]] instead of wandering around the place with [[ThoseTwoGuys Alisa and Suzuka]]; Vita spends some time in the bath with Arisa and Suzuka meets with Hayate, Shamal and Signum.

* In ''LightNovel/ACertainMagicalIndex'', Accelerator ends up hanging out with Index and Touma hangs out with Last Order at the mall. At the end of the day, the two girls reunite with their proper guardians. Index and Last Order move past each other without noticing the other, and Touma and Accelerator do not see each other either.

* In what is probably the longest running example, ''Series/SesameStreet'' spent over a decade (from 1971 to 1985) exhausting pretty much every conceivable variation of this trope with regards to [[NotSoImaginaryFriend popular character Snuffleupagus]]. He was perceived by the vast majority of the adult cast as a figment of Big Bird's imagination until extreme steps were taken to forcibly prevent him from once again fulfilling this trope by leaving the room just as the gathered adults were supposed to meet him. Behind the scenes, the evident reason for his final unveiling to the adult cast was due to fears about young viewers learning the wrong lesson about attempting to tell the truth.

* In ''[[Film/{{Beethoven}} Beethoven's 2nd]]'', when the puppies are still being hidden from the father, there are several close calls where he almost finds one.

* ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventure'':

** Later, Jewerly Bonney spots Luffy and [[spoiler:Lucky]] at opposite ends of a restaurant table, with at least one of their faces covered up by the menu the entire time. When their order finally comes, both of them put down their menus and Bonney expects them to act in surprise, [[SubvertedTrope only for them to act like they've been eating together the entire time]], with [[spoiler:Lucky]] having been the one to invite Luffy to the restaurant in the first place.

[[folder:Film — Animated]]

[[folder:Film — Live-Action]]

* The music video for Daniel Powter's "Bad Day" features two strangers who live and work near to each other, but keep missing each other because of different timetables or because they look away when they are alone in their respective offices. [[spoiler: Until the end, where the guy covers the girl with an umbrella as she calls a cab.]]

* Ellis Peters has two people, who had never seen each other but are primary-importance characters, do this in one of the ''Literature/BrotherCadfael'' mysteries, to the point where one holds the other's stirrup ''not realizing who the other is''.

* Arya in the second and third books of ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'' always seems to come within hours, or occasionally minutes, of her home or family members only for something to keep her from reaching her destination.

* In ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'', this occurs to Gandalf fairly often, as per the Appendixes.
** He returns to Bag End after escaping from Isengard, only to find out that Frodo has left six days prior.
** He then proceeds to travel to Bree and again arrives after Frodo and company have left - approximately around twelve hours earlier.
** He rides to Weathertop, gets ambushed by the Nazgûl and drives them off - three days before Frodo and company arrive there.
** After his resurrection, the Eagles fly him to Lothlórien but he arrives the day after the Fellowship left.

* Subverted in the ''WesternAnimation/StarTrekLowerDecks'' episode "Much Ado About Boimler", in which Tenzi has created an artificial dog which is actually an AnimalisticAbomination. She regularly leaves the room just before her horrifed crewmates see The Dog shapeshift into a spider form or whatever, giving the impression she's unaware of this. It turns out she knows ''exactly'' what The Dog is capable of; she just didn't know regular dogs ''couldn't''.

* Used in a heartbreakingly sad way in the music video for "Whiskey Lullaby" by Music/BradPaisley and Allison Krauss. The cheating wife spends the first part of the video desperately searching for her husband so she can apologize. She keeps missing him as he sinks behind a car in an alleyway as she drives past and gets kicked out of a crowded bar on one side while she's looking on the other. If you've listened to [[DownerEnding the song,]] you can guess what happens next. [[spoiler: She doesn't find him in time to keep him from committing suicide. She follows him shortly thereafter.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/AnAmericanTail'': Young Fievel is separated from his family on their way to America, and spends the rest of the movie looking for them, barely missing them on several occasions; this was partly because his sister Tanya is the only one really looking for him, while the parents believe he's as good as dead or assume it's impossible he'd make it to America.
** In the sequel, ''An American Tail: Fievel Goes West'', Fievel and Tiger walk past each other in the desert, under the assumption that the other is just a mirage. It doesn't even help that they address each other "Hi, mirage of Tiger", "Hi, mirage of Fievel".
*** Of course, [[JustifiedTrope they did both suffer repercussions of being fooled by a mirage only moments prior]], with Fievel hugging a cactus patch he thought was his family (with painful results) and Tiger kissing an owl he thought was his girlfriend. As such, they were very inclined to not risk a repeat.