For a week, I read everyone’s postings on GayTrain.com about all of the hot guys supposedly riding the F.  I took the F every morning and afternoon, and all I saw were chunky Russian women and cranky commuters.  I was beginning to wonder if I suffered from poor eyesight, poor timing, or just plain bad taste.  Maybe I actually was the hot guy they were all talking about.  It all seemed like a bunch of nonsense to me, and after a few days of staring at nothing worth staring at, I went back to reading Page Six. 

That is, until I saw Stewart. 

Of course, I didn’t know his name was Stewart.  He was just an anonymous guy, bleached-blond on top of hanging, soft light brown hair, tortoise shell glasses, clunky tan shoes.  He was strikingly handsome and somehow too small, like a famous person who looks a lot bigger on TV.  Actually, he reminded me of a celebrity, but I couldn’t decide who – not Tom Cruise or Jude Law per se, but maybe in that league.  Perhaps not in the league, but at least a mascot for it.  He caught my eye in a car full of passable but not exactly cute white guys – a dorky redhead bopping to an iPod, a guy with a trim brown beard and a big nose, a beefy dude wearing gym shorts and carrying a suit. 

But, ah, Stewart!  He seemed to be with the older woman sitting next to him – his mother, maybe? – and he buried his adorable face in the Wall Street Journal.  I sighed, resigned to claiming one of the dorks as my subway boyfriend, until I noticed Stewart looking up from his paper.  Was he glancing my way?  I turned just in time to see his blond mop sink behind the Leisure/Weekend section.  I held my breath and waited, and sure enough – he looked again.  He was giving me the eye!  Stewart pushed his glasses up on his nose, gave me a half-smile, and went back to Leisure/Weekend.  I pushed my own glasses up, and felt a drop of cold sweat roll down my left side. 

The train got more and more crowded, and at each stop, I worried that we’d be obscured from one another’s view.  But each time, amidst the briefcases and backpacks and strollers and slumping middle-aged people, Stewart and I found our way back to each other.  We were connected by something much bigger than us, than this commute, than GayTrain.com.   

Our glances got longer, lasting a few seconds at a time.  I decided to throw caution to the wind, and half-smiled his way.  There was no doubt about it:  we were in love.  Our timing was impeccable; we kept looking at the same time, or at least close enough to spend a second or two in underground ecstasy. 

But then I took pause.  Perhaps it was too much.  Perhaps I was misinterpreting, I was a fool, I was the lech of the F train.  I looked away, at the other guys in headphones and black frame glasses, practically begging for love. 

There was no reason to doubt him.  Stewart was looking my way again, grinning a stupid, dopey grin, which I returned right away.  I was gleeful. 

Until I started imagining our prom pictures, that is.  Not that two guys in their late twenties would necessarily be attending a prom, but I knew that if we did, my massive head would dwarf Stewart’s perfectly-shaped, handsome face.  I felt gargantuan, awkward and giant and out of shape.  The pictures would look terrible. 

I looked to Stewart for reassurance, but he was gone, his petite visage hidden behind a canvas tote advertising the Park Slope Co-op.  And I was only a stop away from home, from having to say goodbye. 

I went out on a limb, scrawling my name and cell number on the back of my business card, and standing before we entered the station.  I nodded across the train to Stewart, waving my card with a question mark plastered across my face.  I concentrated hard.  “Do you want my number?” I thought.  He smiled and nodded, and as I exited the car, I reached across the middle-aged Co-op hippie and handed him my heart, and my card. 

I skipped home, barely noticing the neighborhood bars and dogs and people out in the twilight.  All I could think about was me and Stewart, whose name I didn’t yet know, and also “American Idol,” and cooking dinner.  I defrosted some ground turkey, loosened my tie, and opened a beer. 

It was an hour later when I awoke to the harsh ring of my cell phone, blazing with a number that had no name attached, a number that I didn’t recognize.  My heart leapt.  It was him.

And it was!  I told him the truth, that I’d never given my number to anyone on the train before.  He told me that he’d noticed me back in the station, that I’d caught his eye, that the woman to his side really was his mother.  We reveled in our shared joy, the joy of love found on the train.  He asked me what I did for work, and I told him it was on my business card, silly.  He told me he cooked at a restaurant, one that I had heard of and read about even.  I swooned.  I asked him where he was from, and he told me he was from the South.  He was younger than me, we lived four subway stops apart, he had been in New York just a few years.  I lived alone, he lived with his boyfriend. 

I choked on some ground turkey.  I thanked Stewart for his call.  I clapped the cell phone closed.  And then I posted one hell of a message on GayTrain.com.  Stupid fucking F train.