I was traveling to New York on business from London and I found someone’s driver’s license in the back seat of a taxi cab. Now, it was a weekend evening/probably about 2am, and I was traveling by cab because I needed to change hotels from a hotel near Times Square up the Le Parker Meridien. The next morning (ok probably early afternoon) I woke up and looked at the Driver’s Licence because I wanted to be sure I could get it back to the person ASAP. When looking at the [I won’t give up the state, but it was outside of NY] DL, it was funny because I was familiar with the area where she lived. She also was incredibly attractive. I tried to track her down via social media/LinkedIn etc, but she didn’t respond until I had returned to London from my business trip.
After I got back to London, I decided to send her by post the Drivers Licence back to her using the address on the DL. I wrote a letter to her saying that I frequently travel between London and New York and that if she were half as pretty as she looked on her driver’s licence then I wanted to take her to dinner the next time I was in town. While taken aback, Holly [pseudonym] decided to take me up on it (I included on the original post my email address, which she emailed to thank me for returning it.)
About 2 weeks later I came back to New York and I had just one night in town and Holly and I met for dinner. About 30 minutes into dinner her phone goes off and she excuses herself momentarily and comes back and tells me, “sorry that was just one of my girlfriends calling who was going to fake an emergency in case you turned out to be a total creep, but you aren’t in the slightest, so I told her that I was absolutely fine and safe.” I told her that I appreciated her candor and that I similarly enjoyed her company. Dinner went on spectacularly and we really enjoyed each other’s company.
Unfortunately, it was a holiday weekend so the next morning I had to leave New York to see my family, but I said my goodbyes that morning to Holly as I rushed out of the door of my hotel at the midtown Westin, I had about 45 minutes until my flight was scheduled to depart LaGuardia and somehow, I made it. I knew that this wasn’t going to be the last time I saw Holly, so I wasn’t worried. I thought about her a lot on the plane ride back to where I lived in the midwest. I let her sleep for a few more hours as her parents were coming to town to visit that day, but we quickly began regularly texting.
Despite being based in London, Holly and I both found a massive spark between each other. She flew to London to visit me not long after our first in-person visit in New York. While retrospectively she told me I was kind of lame when we were in London, I have a BUNCH of amazing stories of things we did while we were there and laughs we shared. We used Boris Bikes, and I didn’t know she didn’t know how to bike, so in the middle of the night peddling through Regent’s Park to my flat she fell. I wasn’t sure if it was her coordination or the alcohol. Anyway, I was pedaling super fast and didn’t notice she had fallen for probably 3–4 minutes. I obviously turned around, in the dark called out to her and quickly found her. When I found her she told me she was too embarrassed to tell me she didn’t know how to bicycle. We parked our bikes and walked the rest of the way home, hand in hand.
Not long after her visit I was making plans to move to New York, so I could be closer to her. Not long after I moved into her apartment with her roommate who was less than thrilled with my presence, but I chipped in for rent. Holly and I soon got our own place to live together and were very much in love.
Unfortunately, this story is one of the luckiest things to happen to me in my life and also the most heartbreaking. After almost two and a half years I made the mistake of “emotionally cheating on Holly” by using Tinder. This is not to excuse my behaviour but in retrospect much of it was because all of my guy friends used it and I fell into the trap of using it for my ego. There is nothing more in this life that I regret then that relationship not working out. Holly and I are no longer in contact and I have consciously made it a point to let her live her own life. However, if she ever wanted to be a part of my life again I would more than welcome it.
So there you go, there is my story, as Rihanna once said, “I found love in a hopeless place.” In my case it was jammed in the rear seat of a New York yellow taxi cab.
For all of you who think I am a massive asshole and deserve what I got, you’re probably right. Also, for those who believe you can live a life with no regrets, screwing things up here was and is my greatest regret of all time. In the meantime, I am keeping my chin up, as I have had some pretty incredible events happen in my life that have caused me to focus inward for a while. I look forward to finding another companion like Holly or having Holly back in my life someday.