‘Crazy’ American tourist launches social media search for ‘one that got away’ two years after meeting him
‘Hopefully whoever sees this believes in fairy tales and love at first sight! And if not...I can just be the crazy American girl,’ says lovestruck visitor
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Your support makes all the difference.It’s a love story for the digital age: an American tourist who visited the UK in 2018 and was convinced she met the man of her dreams launched a search to find him via social media.
Kate Lefler, 23, travelled from Oklahoma to Europe two years ago and met “Adam from Wales” in a bar in Plymouth.
The pair hit it off, “sparks flew” and they kissed at the end of the night.
He took her phone number with the promise they would meet up again, but Lefler realised too late she had missed out the area code digits.
“When a text never came I started to realise I never put my area code in with my number in his phone,” she said.
While many might have moved on in the intervening 24 months, Lefler couldn’t shake the feeling that Adam was “the one that got away”, and this summer she decided to track him down.
Lefler started by reaching out to the pub where they met, the Rust and Royal in Plymouth.
“Hopefully whoever sees this believes in fairy tales and love at first sight! And if not...I can just be the crazy American girl trying to find Adam,” she wrote.
Lefler only had his name, the fact he was from Wales and in town to visit a friend called Mac to go on. She also had one photo of Mac, which she shared with the pub.
Although no one at the Rust and Royal had been working there two years prior, the team was still keen to help Lefler in her unusual quest, agreeing to share the photo across their social media channels to see if anyone recognised him.
Lefler also took matters into her own hands by setting up an Instagram account, @helpkatefindadam, to track down the mysterious Adam.
“With the encouragement of my friends and family I’m making this account in an effort to find a man named Adam that I met two years ago in England,” she wrote in her opening post.
“We drank, we laughed, we danced and had an amazing night! We promised to see each other the next day but I failed to give him my number correctly thanks to that local Plymouth gin.
“It’s safe to say sparks flew, and even though it was two years ago I think about that night all the time.
“I’ve got limited information but enough that I think I could find him! What else do I have to do while stuck at home anyways?”
Social media worked its magic, and within two days Lefler had located her old flame – although it wasn’t quite the fairy tale ending she might have hoped for.
She wrote in a final post: “Happy to say we found him! Thank you everyone that spread the word-the internet is so amazing!
“With that being said, he IS in a relationship, so in effort to respect his relationship and privacy I’ll be shutting this account down soon. However, I’m so thankful to receive that closure and be able to re-connect regardless.”
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