Life is Not Always Like the Movies

We've all seen the scenario: boy and girl meet cute, spend a wonderful day/evening together (usually in a very romantic locale), fall in love, and then part, leaving one or the other to suddenly realize "I don't even know your last name, phone number, or where you live! I must spend every waking moment finding you!" I think Ethan Hawke is in one or more of those movies.

Real life, sadly, can be a bit different. According to the International Business Times, a New Zealander, Reese McKee, has admitted that his quest to find "Katie," an American woman he met last New Years Eve in Hong Kong, got a bit out of hand.

Reese McKee, 25, launched a Facebook campaign last week where he asked for help tracking down a woman he spent New Year’s Eve with last year in Hong Kong. All he knew was her name, “Katie,” and the fact she was from Washington, D.C., and a photo he took of her on his phone.

It must have been some New Years Eve. Right?

“I was just walking around and admiring the lights and found this girl just crying on the side of the road. I went and tried to help her out. She was lost. She'd lost all her friends,” he said. “I just cheered her up. I sort of have this undeniably bad sense of humor that no one can resist laughing at.” The pair went drinking and dancing until she was reunited with her friends at 6 a.m., McKee said.

Well, that sounds nice. So, what went wrong?

"It turned into a massive 'let's stalk every Katie in the DC area'. I was trying to get people to stop that, but with 2000 plus people messaging ... it got a bit out of hand,'' he said.

The mystery girl, “Katie,” was tracked down, McKee says. “We found the girl. She is from DC, she’s not there at the moment, but she’s sorta taken down all her public profiles for a bit.”

McKee admits he hasn’t contacted “Katie” yet, saying he’s waiting for the attention to die down before he reaches out.

“I'm just looking to settle it down. It was a hell of a lot of pressure, after the second day it sort of dawned on me that if I was going through this much, then there was going to be an incredible wave of pressure slammed into her, I suppose she's sort of gone offline for a bit. It's understandably overwhelming.”

In the movies, romantic pursuits like this wind up with a happy ending. In real life, I guess, you get a bunch of messages on your Facebook page calling you a "cyber-stalker."

The New Zealand Herald has more.