Things that happen in a commuter train....

Rush hour train from New York City to Connecticut. I am lucky enough to find a comfortable seat on a busy ride. Commuters are carrying their briefcases, coats, hats, umbrellas, laptops, and tablets. Lots of noise-canceling headphones.

I decide to write for a while until I get distracted by a fellow passenger. In front of me, three people share a bench, their elbows and knees touching. In the middle, a man, probably reaching his 70s, is on his phone, what is left of his white hair carefully arranged. It is not that I am curious, but his phone is held high in plain sight, so I read as I always do.

He is on a dating app, don’t ask me which because that is not a domain I am familiar with. Now he has my full attention.

He goes to see his daily matches. A full list of women comes up. I find myself judging along: “This one seems trustworthy,” “too much plastic surgery,” “too young for him.”

He keeps closing profile after profile but takes a few extra seconds on a few. Then he goes on Google. Now, he and I are in full stalking mode. I wonder if his fellow riders, only inches away, are as engaged as I am in this man’s search. The white-hair-man returns to the dating app and disqualifies a few more women I thought could be a good match for him. I don’t say anything, obviously.

After a while, he closes the app and opens a book. I can’t read from where I am, but it has the word “power” on it.

We both stand up simultaneously because we are getting out at the same train station. From the upfront, he looks like an ordinary man. He could probably be my dad. He did not look too amicable or grumpy, just a plain man. I can’t avoid thinking that the beauty of dating in this digital age is that people can be picky without offending anyone. The smartness of it, it’s that an ordinary man can change the destiny of his love life with just one click. The surprising fact is that in a packed commuter train I seem to be the only one who finds a man checking his dating matches in plain sight, an anomaly worth stealing my curiosity.

Good luck, man with white hair and a book about power! I hope you find a match worth keeping your curiosity alive.