CHICAGO, IL--Copy editor Preston Parks sat next to his soulmate Amy Gammel on a short subway ride Monday, but declined to strike up a conversation with the woman who is his absolute emotional, mental, and physical match.
Although the two had approximately eight minutes to discuss their shared love for marine biology, Jazz, Oscar Wilde, Skyrim, and the Los Angeles Dodgers, Parks chose instead to not initiate contact with Gammel. Parks' reluctance--stemming from his long-held belief that social interaction among strangers on public transportation is considered creepy and rude--would have been thrown away in an instant had he even the vaguest clue that decades of romantic bliss were within his grasp.
Upon taking his seat next to Gammel, Parks glanced momentarily at the woman who possesses the ability to move his very soul in ways unlike any other of the planet's 3.4 billion women, and after quickly deciding she was attractive, failed to take advantage of the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Experts say that the odds of the would-be couple meeting again while both are single are "almost statistically impossible."
Gammel, a Missouri native who visits her cousins in Chicago a handful of times each year, is unlikely to return to the city until Christmas, when Parks typically goes east to be with his family. Even in the unlikely event of the two making contact again, their virtually-identical values systems would prohibit making romantic overtures to another individual in a relationship, nor while in a relationship themselves.
Sources say that even the briefest of exchanges between the pair during the journey would have led to a love affair which Hollywood scriptwriters would have had trouble inventing. As it stands currently, both appear destined to enter into perfectly ordinary and predictable marriages, instead of a relationship that would have been the envy of all they would meet.
Also lost are the four children and 10 grandchildren that would have resulted from their union, all of whom would have described Gammel and Parks' marriage as hauntingly perfect. The animal shelter the twosome would have built following their retirement to Arizona is also unlikely to ever exist.
Gammel, who was absorbed in the sports section of USA Today, did not even look in Parks' direction during the trip. She did briefly catch a whiff of his aftershave and decided that it smelled "nice", a word that would have been inadequate to describe what would have been their honeymoon in the Caribbean.
At press, it is believed that neither Gammel nor Parks has yet reflected on missing out on meeting the one person on the planet who understands them better they understand themselves and still loves them.
