Love Underground

I saw love-at-first-sight happen this morning and it was a beautiful thing. I was sitting on the tube, in my usual semi-catatonic state, just vaguely people-watching. A seat came free, but the man standing in front of me didn't want it. A girl behind him, however, did. She said "excuse me" and started to manoeuvre around him. He turned, their eyes met and it was as if a jolt of electricity suddenly hit the carriage...

Seriously! It was quite amazing! And I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only one who felt it. You could almost feel the focus of the carriage shifting onto this central point between them. She started to smile and so did he, neither of them broke eye contact and everything seemed to slow down. As she tried to move past him she was also turning towards him, away from her seat and he turned with her - keeping her directly in front of him. It was like a dance, they were less than a foot apart, rotating slowly and neither could bare to look away from the others' eyes.

At some point she remembered where she was and what she was doing and moved away to sit down. He couldn't take his eyes off her. She was trying to play it cool - but she was blushing furiously and kept sneaking little glances over her newspaper. A couple of stops later she got off... and he visibly swayed towards the door. He actually moved one foot - I could see him thinking about it... should he follow her? I noticed several other women in the carriage were also watching him intently. I had to bite my tongue to stop myself from shouting "Go on! Go after her! At least say 'hello' and she'll offer a phone number - trust me! She will!"

She was moving slowly, with the crowd, towards the exit. I knew the doors would close any second and that would be it. Millions of people travel on the tube every morning, even if they both use that same route everyday - it doesn't necessarily mean they'll see each other again.

She was nearly gone and the doors HAD to close soon... then at the last moment she turned - for one last look at him. That did it: as the doors started closing he squeezed himself through them and the last thing I saw, as the train pulled away, was him reaching over to touch her shoulder.

Mmmmmmmm. There is hope!