The New York City subway certainly has a lot of shortcomings. The stations are generally repulsive. The trains are arbitrarily delayed, and seemingly always when you happen to be running late already. There are inconsiderate passengers who have no problem eating a container of funky smelling stew in a car full of people.
But all of these eccentricities lend a certain kind of charm to the subway. After all, what’s more romantic than finding your future other day half on a grimy platform in the midst of a swarm of sweaty people?
That doesn’t actually happen, you might say. Only Kristen Bell in cheesy rom coms can pull that off, you might say. But that’s not the case at all. In fact, it happened to me this very summer.
The following is a true story that took place on the M train one hot August evening.
I was in Bushwick, heading home from work around 5:00 PM. My coworker who had been sitting across from me got off at the Myrtle-Broadway stop.
“Bye, Michelle!” I call out. As if on cue, a tall blonde hipster who had been standing near us slides into the freshly vacated seat. She looks me straight in the eye, and it seems too intentional. I realize: this is it. My Kristen Bell moment. Hello, shabby chic, brick wall lined, one-bedroom-one-cat loft in Williamsburg.
“Okay, so this is going to sound weird,” she says, flashing a shy smile and giving me heart palpitations. “…but I have the same hat!” She pulls out of her bag the same exact galaxy print five-panel hat that sits on top of my head.
Of everything I could have expected (“hey, beautiful” or “wow, do you work out or something?”) this was not it.
What crazy act of the universe was this?! What are the odds that she would be on this exact train at this exact time and wearing that hat on this exact day and noticed me? Truly we must be star-crossed lovers, fated to meet in this sticky little subway car.
We chat about how we both bought it on sale at Urban Outfitters last May and how by now we’ve discovered that we get an abundance of compliments on it every time we wear it out.
Unbelievable. We’re both cheapskates and narcissistic? How have I found someone I have so much in common with?
As we approach the Essex St. stop, I have to get up. “Well, it was really nice to meet you!” I say, and with that I step off the train and she becomes lost in the sea of anonymous faces.
I look back, of course. But by then, the train has already closed its doors and with a loud woosh leaves the platform and with it my soul mate.
Then, I realize: Wait! I don’t even know her name!
But then I realize: Wait, what’s more romantic than that? I know next to nothing about her and it seems borderline inconceivable that I will ever see her again.
However, I have no doubt that if it is meant to be, our paths will cross once again. Until then, my love.
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