A MODERN-DAY love story of a man spotting the girl of his dreams across a New York subway train and tracking her down over the internet has failed to have a fairy-tale ending.
For web designer Patrick Moberg, then 21, from Brooklyn, it was love at first sight when he spotted a woman on a Manhattan train last November. But he lost her in the crowd so set up a website with a sketch to find her – www.nygirlofmydreams.com.
Unbelievably in a city of eight million people, it took Moberg only 48 hours to track down the woman, with his phone ringing non-stop and e-mail inbox overflowing as usually cynical New Yorkers took sympathy on the subway Romeo and joined his hunt.
The mysterious brunette was named as Camille Hayton, from Melbourne, Australia, who was working as an intern at the magazine BlackBook and lived in Brooklyn too.
But after finding each other, appearing on TV and getting international press, the couple took their romance out of the public eye, with Moberg closing down the website and with both refusing to making any more comments – until now.
Hayton told Australian newspaper the Sunday Telegraph that she dated Moberg for about two months but it didn't work out.
"We dated for a while but now we're just friends," Hayton, now 23, told the newspaper. "It's really nice that people embraced the story. It is part of my life now."
Hayton said she is still recognised on the streets of Manhattan as "that girl" and the question is always the same: "So what happened?"
"I think the situation was so intense that it bonded us," she said, adding "it bonded us in a way that you could mistake, I guess, for being more romantic than it was. I don't know. But I wanted to give it a go so I didn't wonder what if, what if?
"I just can't believe it happened. It feels like a long time ago," said Hayton.
Moberg, however, was still refusing to comment on the relationship. "We've decided not to do any more press," he wrote in an e-mail.
