Real-Life Meet-Cutes
By: Veronica Blackwood
Tags: Public Transportation, Personal Essay, Modern Romance, Short Essay, Humor

Romance is a strange thing. You can see it everywhere you look: couples on the train holding hands, sneaking kisses…nervous teenagers clasping their sweaty palms together…two strangers meeting eyes and just knowing it’s the beginning of something magical. The idea of meet-cutes are especially enchanting. Though they are most commonly associated with saccharine rom-coms in which two impossibly attractive young people bump into each other in an elevator, make no mistake: They happen in real life, too. I know, because it happened to me. This is my story.

It started, as meet-cutes often seem to, with a ride on public transport. I was coming home from a restaurant shift, exhausted and very much in my own world. Until, that is, the bus driver was forced to slam on the brakes, revealing that the wheelchair seating the man next to me had not been properly hooked into its holder. His chair careened over, but thankfully I was able to grab it before the man fell. We did not fall in love. Instead, I said “Oh my god! Are you alright?” The man gruffly replied that he was. The bus driver apologized profusely and hooked his chair in properly, but the poor guy spent the rest of the ride with an iron grip on the side rail. I would have done the same. Endanger my life once, shame on you. Endanger it twice, well…

If you haven’t spent a lot of time on city buses, it might surprise you to know that this was not, in fact, the worst part of my 30 minute rid home. No, no. The worst part came after the wheelchair incident, after I had resolved to keep my eyes downturned for the rest of the ride. After a few minutes I began to notice a wetness pooling on the floor of the bus, trickling ever closer to my shoes. I didn’t want to look up, but of course I did. There was an older woman on the bus hooked up to a catheter. And, seemingly unbeknownst to her (but definitely knownst to the rest of us) it was leaking. Of course no one said a word. We all just sat in polite, quiet horror. I pulled the rope and got off two stops early. Another guy got off at the same stop. As we were leaving I met his eyes and widened mine, as if to say, I don’t know you, but we just experienced something together. We are forever changed by what we’ve just been through. He smiled blankly at me and said “You live around here?” I kicked myself internally, because what was going to happen now was my fault. I had initiated the eye contact in hopes of a brief moment of connection with a stranger over a shared, fresh trauma. Instead, I told him yes, I did live around here, and was just taking the bus home from work. “Oh my god, really?” He said. I blinked, wondering what part of my answer was so interesting. I didn’t have to wait long to find out. “I work too! That’s crazy!” I studied his face for any hint of irony, but all I saw was a confusing level of sincere excitement. I began to wonder if he had even noticed the piss on the floor.

“Well,” I said. “This is my street.” He waved and said “Maybe I’ll see you around sometime?” I forced a smile. “Yeah, sure.”

Reader, I married him.