New York subway romance hits end of the line

Commuters wait to board the New York City Subway in New York March 10, 2008.

CANBERRA (Reuters Life!) - A modern-day love story of a man spotting the girl of his dreams across a New York subway train and tracking her down over the Internet has failed to have a fairytale ending with the relationship over.

For Web designer Patrick Moberg, then 21, from Brooklyn, it was love at first sight when he spotted a woman on a Manhattan train last November. But he lost her in the crowd so he set up a website with a sketch to find her -- www.nygirlofmydreams.com.

Unbelievably in a city of 8 million people, it only took Moberg 48 hours to track down the woman, with his phone ringing non-stop and email box overflowing as usually cynical New Yorkers took sympathy on the subway Romeo and joined his hunt.

The mysterious brunette was named as Camille Hayton, from Melbourne, Australia, who was working as an intern at the magazine BlackBook and also lived in Brooklyn. One of her friends spotted the sketched picture on the Web site and recognized her.

But after finding each other, appearing on TV and getting international press, the couple took their romance out of the public eye, with Moberg closing down the Web site and with both refusing to making any more comments -- until now.

Hayton told Australian newspaper The Sunday Telegraph that she dated Moberg for about two months but it just didn't work out.

"I say we dated for a while but now we're just friends," Hayton, now 23, told the newspaper. "It's really nice that people embraced the story. It is part of my life now."

Hayton said she is still recognized about three times a week on the streets of Manhattan as "that girl"' and the question is always the same: "So what happened?"

"I think the situation was so intense that it bonded us," she said, adding it "bonded us in a way that you could mistake, I guess, for being more romantic than it was. I don't know. But I wanted to give it a go so I didn't wonder what if, what if?"

Hayton told The Sunday Telegraph that she is enjoying single life in New York, keeping busy with acting classes, working in two vintage clothing stores and as a waitress.

Last week she had a small role as a waitress in the long-running daytime soap "As The World Turns" and last year she was an extra in a "blink and you'd miss it" scene in the hit movie "Sex And The City."

"I just can't believe it happened. It feels like a long time ago," said Hayton.

Moberg, however, was still refusing to comment on the relationship.

"We've decided not to do any more press," he wrote in an e-mail to Reuters.

(Reporting by Belinda Goldsmith, Editing by Bill Tarrant)