Tag: life

Mind the Gap: Love at First Sight On the 1 Train

On By KathleenIn Dating, Love, New York City, relationships7 Comments
Waiting on the platform = Waiting for Love?

A future President is about to be sworn in, his parents smile proudly from the audience, and we’re quickly sent on a journey back through the years to the beginning. A man stands on a platform in a train station. In an instant, he locks eyes with the woman surely destined to be the love of his life. The one problem? She’s on another train and it’s about to leave the station. He changes his ticket on his nifty smart phone and before the 30 second clip is over, he’s seated next to her on the train. Life happens.

So goes the  AT&T commercial that inevitably produces a sigh whenever I see it.

In the neat fantasy world of 30-second advertisements, instant connections made in Penn Station or the JFK terminal are never missed. In 30 seconds or less, everyone lives happily ever after.

In the real world, we need Craigslist. If our smart phone fails us on the platform, Craigslist offers us a second chance. Of course, the catch is that our missed connection has to log on and tune in to our broadcast. Isn’t there always a catch in the game of love?

About a year ago, I started reading “Missed Connections” every night before bed. There’s no secret hope that Mr. Right had spied me on the 1 train and tried to reach out through the interweb to find me. Rather, the habit stems from the same inner romantic who religiously peruses the Sunday NYTimes Wedding Announcements. I bask in the possibility that two people can find each other in unexpected places and at unexpected times. Stars collide. Life happens. The cynic in me loves the good giggle some posts inevitably inspire.

An MC post can take one of many guises. Sometimes it’s a digital catcall — a wooowooo directed at a leggy, busty blond walking past a guy on a street corner. Sometimes, it’s a desperate, if not beautiful, attempt at capturing a fleeting electric connection with another human being.

If I were to sit and do a survey, I’d say the number 1 location for a missed connection is the subway. The A train. The 1 line. The B, C, and F. Sometimes the 2/3. Perhaps, in a city like New York, that’s not a surprise. We New Yorkers spend as much time on the move as we do in our offices or out on the town — why shouldn’t we run into the loves of our lives on our morning commute? My parents met one morning in an elevator en route to their respective laboratories at University of Toronto. Perhaps my child’s parents will have met on the 6-train.

Connections are made. Connections are missed. Someone posts an add on Craigslist.

Life happens… in 30 seconds or less.

People passing in by in NYC's Grand Central Station. A missed connection every second

Et Tu, Daddy?

On By KathleenIn Love, Mr. Right5 Comments
It's true there are more male names in my address book than female ones. But it's not a "little black book" list of names. I'm a PJ and they're "My Boys"

I was standing at the laundry sink in our basement, vigorously scrubbing at the oversize blueberry stain on my favorite knock-around sundress (that’s never coming out!) when my father decided it was a good time to get the lowdown on my social life. Though I was armed with spray n’ wash and totally focused on rescuing the pink of my seersucker dress from a purple fate, I gave him an appropriate summary of my outings and updated him on the lives of the friends I knew interested him most.

He was glad I was still in touch with “Tennis” Mike and “Granola” Dan. He encouraged me to visit “DC” Sarah and “New Zealand” Sarah soon (“sure, Dad, if you foot the bill!). He was happy “Cupcake” Cassidy was still fencing and that “Fencing” Mike was still my CityChase partner. Yet, while I thought I had covered all his favorites, it was clear he was unsatisfied with my narrative…

“How come you know and hang out with all these guys and none of them ask you out to dinner?”

I put down the scrub brush, placed my hand on my hip, screwed-up my eyebrows in quizzical disbelief. Had my father,  just asked me why I didn’t have a boyfriend? Et tu, Daddy?!  I thought you thought weddings were “grotesque.”

Without skipping a beat he moved on.

“The next day that isn’t too hot, I’m going to make sure you can change the tires on your car. Clearly, you’ll need to know how to do that on your own.”

“Well then,” I replied, “why don’t you also teach me how to change my oil and rewire a lamp, because clearly there isn’t going to be a guy to do these things for me.”

“No,” he said. “I’d better teach you how to load a dishwasher. You can always get a mechanic to change your oil…you’ll have a much harder time finding someone willing to tackle the kitchen when you’re done with it.”

I'm a talent in the kitchen... particularly at making a mess in one.

They Warned Me I’d Find Love

On By KathleenIn Dating, Love55 Comments

A few days before I left for my 2-week-plus roadtrip to and through Newfoundland, Canada, I stopped in on a psychic. It was one of those post-lunch-with-a-friend-margarita-splurges, so I have something of an excuse for dropping $25 on a tarot reading. I won’t go into the details of her assessment of my future — that’s a story for another blog — but I will say that she rightly tagged me a globe-trotter and proceeded to predict that my soulmate would come to me within the next 6 weeks.

An optimist.

Newfoundlanders have a definite rugged masculinity that has a certain sex appeal

Considering that nearly 3 of my next 6 weeks were to be spent in the rough n’ tumble, fishery-driven, foot-stomping Canadian province of Newfoundland, odds were  50-50 that my “soulmate” would be a Newfie — that is, if you invest any credibility in psychics.

I didn’t necessarily mind that possibility.

Have you ever been somewhere and been hit by an overwhelming feeling that love was waiting for you there? I don’t mean a holiday fling when you’re on vacation. I mean a sense that the real, meaty, lasting stuff is right around that next corner in that city. I was hit with that feeling once — when I was in Vancouver.

Truth is, New York (or perhaps just New Yorkers) has always felt like a romantic deadend for me, (this is not a jaded singleton speaking, it’s intuition). Yet, there’s something in the Canadian air that always makes me feel like  love is possible.  And I’ll confess, I’ve always had a thing for Canadians. Maybe it’s because the men I’ve met there know what I’m talking about when I say I daydream about a Necky Chatham. Maybe it’s because they don’t look like they’re trying too hard when they wear plaid. Maybe it’s the wholesome accent. Or maybe it’s because I’m in the process of applying for Canadian citizenship and I realize marrying one would save me a lot of paperwork.

Newfoundlanders are friendly...go to Living Planet for your own T-Shirt with this Lichtenstein-esque image.

Our psychic might have been on to something?

Newfoundlanders are notoriously hospitable, and everywhere I went in the province I made friends, starting with a retired fisherman/musician I met on the ferry from Nova Scotia. Before we disembarked he looked me in the eye and warned me:

“You’re going to meet someone here. Newfoundlanders love girls like you.”

I laughed, thanked him, and not entirely sure what he meant by “girls like you,” went on my way. I didn’t give him and his warning another thought until a few days later in St. John’s when a local, keen to give me restaurant and concert advice, suddenly stopped our lively chat to say: “You should be prepared. It’s happened before, you know. People come here and fall in love. You’re going to meet someone. Go with it. Newfoundlanders make great mates. They’re very loyal.” He then took his dog and walked away.

It seemed that with every day on the Rock, came another prediction that Newfoundland would present me with new found love. If you’ve seen or read “The Shipping News,” then you have some sense of the real mysticism that hovers over the island. The setting is romantic, the people magical, the tone otherworldly, so with all the forewarning that I would be swept off my feet by a local, I started to think… why not?

It turns out, at the end of the day, they were right. I did meet someone, fall in love with him, and discuss the possibility of taking him home with me…he just wasn’t exactly the Newfoundland stud they might have had in mind…

Newf and I had something special.