My favorite love story was first broadcast some years ago on National Public Radio. Early on a weekday morning, a young professional woman from New York boarded a commuter flight to an important meeting in Washington, D.C. One row behind her across the aisle sat a handsome man of about her age to whom she felt indelibly attracted.

During the flight she looked occasionally at him but said nothing. He seemed to share her interest. After a while she began to feel a bit sick with desire. She descended the plane still not having spoken and proceeded to the baggage claim, feeling his powerful, silent presence right behind her.

She stood right before the handsome stranger in the taxi queue and got in, only to look back through the rear window to see the man holding a sign, "Call me at ####!" But it was too late. Her taxi had already pulled into traffic, and the driver couldn’t turn around or circle back.

Now the young woman felt really sick. She went to her meeting but couldn’t concentrate, thinking only of the man to whom she dared not speak. Never had she felt such magnetic attraction. She couldn’t stay at the meeting; it was impossible.

So she left after scarcely more than an hour and returned by taxi to the airport. She reasoned that the man most likely was a commuter like herself attending a professional meeting, and he might return, like her, to New York that night. She might see him again.

All day she sat in the airport, waiting. What a fool!, she thought after a few hours. She had blown off her important meeting for a phantom figure who might not be that interested in her, or might be all that nice. All day she sat, increasingly restless and dispirited. By evening she felt even more woebegone and disgusted with herself.

Finally, around 10 p.m., she boarded the last commuter flight back to New York. She felt impossibly stupid for having wasted a perfectly good day on a miserable whim. She resolved to return home and do better in the days ahead. As she stepped off the plane and entered the terminal— there he was! Waiting for her. "What took you so long?" he asked.

They have been married for over thirty years.