Every day, a T-rider catches the eye of a stranger reading his or her favorite book or magazine on the MBTA only to watch the train doors close behind the object of affection.
At least 200 such encounters occurred during a recent 11-week span, according to a study of Craigslist Missed Connection posts.
“You were reading a copy of Moby Dick — and really reading it, since you were maybe a third of the way through,” one post reads. “I’ve never posted here before but you really left an impression on me, and it’s just so awkward to intrude in someone’s world on a train.”
Love on the MBTA isn’t always left to chance.
“I’m actually going out on a date tonight with someone I met on the T,” Samantha Bachrach, 23, of Dorchester said yesterday while reading in Park Street Station, which the study named the most romantic and literary T stop.
Mike Leonardo, 23, of Milton said he’s chatted up girls on the train but has never gotten off at their stop.
“She’d have to be really good-looking,” he said.
Park Street is especially fertile ground for collegiate matchmaking.
“At night, lots of groups of drunk guys and drunk girls are here and it seems like a lot of people meet that way,” Suffolk University senior Ashley O’Donnell said. “It’s a better way to meet someone than in a bar in this city.”
Boston’s 10 most-romantic stations
The TRIST (short for Train Romance Index Score Total) is calculated by dividing the total number of Missed Connection mentions for a particular station or line by the average daily ridership for that station or line and then multiplying by 10,000 and rounding to two decimal places.
Station (Mentions in MC Ads/Trist Romance Score)
1. Park Street (40/20.67)
2. Davis (18/16.58)
3. Harvard (29/14.77)
4. Downtown Crossing (31/13.19)
5. Alewife (12/11.94)
6. Kendall/MIT (14/11.18)
7. Central Square (13/9.60)
8. Copley (11/8.13)
9. South Station (17/7.93)
10. Kenmore (8/7.69)
