annals of an obsession

it all started on november 5th. after crossing the finish line of the nyc marathon, which has yet to see its own detailed entry, on my way to the family reunion area, i noticed a runner walking next to me. he was tall and thin - perfect runner physique - and had a charming face. he looked sort of familiar, but at the time i ascribed this familiarity to his prototypical runner body. i could tell the race took a toll on him as he was not in very high spirits. i empathized: the joy from the accomplishment was still overshadowed by sheer physical pain. a quick look at his official transparent bag revealed a 3 digit number - which in a 37,000-people race is a clue to a very fast runner. sweet. we even exchanged a few words: he told me a brazilian male runner won the race but didn't know who the female winner was. he asked how my race went. it was a promising start. sadly, then we hit the reunion area, he reunited with his family while i reunited with mine - that is, my best friend who came to pick up whatever was left of me after pulling me with an invisible string for 2 miles after 24th mile. the day went on, i celebrated in several different locations, stories were told, food was eaten, alcohol was drunk (ouch)... the encounter with the beautiful runner was almost entirely forgotten. almost.

several days later, as i was dealing with millions of things that descended upon me at work while struggling with soreness and somewhat of a marathon-enduced post-partem depression, i remembered him - the 3-digit beauty. i remembered that despite my soreness at the finish line i managed to memorize his number and 3 clicks later i found out that he finished the race in 2:38 - and his name. and then i moved on, once again.

it took several more days of post-marathon malaise before it hit me: google him. can't hurt, right?

wow.

some people have generic names, which, when googled, lead to 65.3 million hits, among which, probably somewhere at the very end, is a page or two that are actually relevant to the subject being studied. other people have very specific names which yield 5 sites, all of which are highly relevant to the stalkee. three digits, as i came to call him, was an interesting combination of these two types of people: his name was highly unique and yet yielded quite literally hundreds of fascinating websites. for the next couple of hours i became fully immersed in his life.

that he is my age was no news to me - i saw that on the marathon results page. however, i was stunned to find out that that the true reason why he seemed so familiar was that he was my classmate in college. but he wasn't just any classmate. he was on the track team and he was an honors scholar with a major in cognitive neuroscience. while those 2 things are essentially the definition of socially deficient dorkdom, to me they served as immense turn-ons: a runner with a brain! in addition to being smart and fast, he was also the son of a prominent new york times science writer, who apparently from time to time dipped into his knowledge of running as documented by the fact that he co-authored some marathon-related articles with her.

i don't know if it was physical attraction, his speed, the fact that we have more in common than i ever expected, or pure boredom that made me look for more. with every new page an incremental fact emerged, a new interesting piece of information. he is a phd student in psychology at a university in new jersey; apparently he runs every race in the state, always finishing in the top 5; he doesn't have an NYRR record (strange); his grandmother died in 2001... at this point, the diagnosis was clear - i was obsessed.

the obsession ritual culminated earlier today. an email arrived in my mailbox from my university asking me to update my alumni contact information. as i was updating it, i briefly thought about looking up some of my college friends - and then BAM! before i knew i was typing in the runner's name and hitting enter, feeling my heart skip a couple of beats as i was waiting a few seconds for the results to load. his name showed up and one click later i was staring at his gmail address. oh god, just how creepy would it be to send him an email? should i?

after giving it some thought i decided that having this semi-fictitious person to fantasize about is much more satisfying than facing the cruel reality of the situation. after all, what do i have to offer to a 2:38 marathoner anyway? oatmeal cookies?

oh well, moving on.