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Hell's Kitchen Man Brings 'Missed Connections' Back to the Real World

By Gwynne Hogan | August 10, 2015 3:26pm
 A 50-year-old Hell's Kitchen photographer is looking for his soul mate the old fashioned way, sort of.
A 50-year-old Hell's Kitchen photographer is looking for his soul mate the old fashioned way, sort of.
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DNAinfo/Gwynne Hogan

HELLS KITCHEN — A Midtown portrait photographer is going out on a limb and hunting for the soul mate  he spotted a month ago by posting a romantic note on a tree, near where the two crossed paths.

Last week Robert, 50, who asked his last name be withheld but who lives and works in Hell's Kitchen, stapled a romantic note along with a sprig of plastic flowers to a tree in front of the thrift store where he first eyed the woman of this dreams.

“For the ‘mystery woman’ I saw in this thrift shop, weeks ago,” the note reads. “We exchanged glances, but we never spoke.” 

Robert encountered his mystery lady weeks earlier and couldn’t get the interaction out of his mind. The two were the only ones at Housing Works Thrift Store on 732 9th Avenue on the evening of July 1, Robert said. The mystery woman was wearing a black dress and pumps and had her dark hair in a tight braid, he said.

“It was a really hot summer day, those hot humid summer days [where] the minute you go outside you’re just sweating,” he said. “I was sweaty, I hadn’t shaved in two days. I looked like something the cat dragged in.”

Appearances didn’t matter though, he said. Their eyes locked and Robert felt a wall of energy that connected them. 

“I looked at her with admiration, I admired her,” he said. “I’ve never have had that feeling before.”

As a professional photographer, Robert has handed out his business card thousands of times before, but in this pivotal moment, he said he froze.

“This feeling like being short-circuited,” he said. “It was a busy day and she had already disappeared into the crowd.”

An ex-girlfriend showed him Craiglist ‘Missed Connections’ after he told her about his could-be romance, and he got the idea to post a note in the real world, he said.

He thought someone would tear down the note right away, and the fact that it’s survived several days made him want to cry, he said.

“This tells me that in spite of all the craziness…of all the violence, of all the petty bulls*** and stress of New York that people inside are really looking for the same thing,” he said. “And maybe all of us share the same fantasy of meeting the guy or the girl of our dreams.”

Rochelle Sharp, 26, who works at Ricky’s beauty product store in front of where the note is posted, saw Robert post the note last week.

She said she was skeptical that the mystery woman would find the note, but thought that maybe another curious woman looking for a soul mate too might respond.

“It's sweet,” she said. “I really hope he'll find her, but I don’t think so.”