I’ve Tried Really Hard To Hate This Viral #PlaneBae Love Story, But It Got Me In The End

This week, the Internet has been gripped by a very modern love story, one which doesn’t feature the inhabitants of the Love Island villa or a random celebrity coupling. It all began when Rosey Blair boarded an aeroplane. She'd been seated a row behind her boyfriend (shoutout to airlines and their never not confusing and/ or extortionate seat booking policies!) so asked the woman in the seat next to her if she'd be happy to switch. Being an apparently reasonable person, the woman agreed; she and Rosie even joked, as we find out from the viral Twitter thread, that her new seat mate 'would be the love of her life.' You can see where this is going, can't you?

And so it transpires, through a series of plane selfies and creep shots overlaid with excitable captions in Instagram Stories' 'Bold' font, that the woman's new seat mate is - rom-com klaxon - as conventionally attractive as she is! Courtesy of Rosey's Twitter updates (if this is a 21st century Pride and Prejudice, she is 100 percent the Mrs Bennet of the story) we know it's not long before they're chatting, smiling touching arms and waving at a baby.

They swap fitness tips (and Instagram handles); they order a cheese board together (protein?); at one point, they make an ambiguous joint trip to the bathroom. And when the plane lands, they head off to baggage control together, not quite hand in hand, but certainly closer than the average accidental co-travellers.

In the day or so since Rosey's thread picked up thousands of re-tweets, the newly-crowned #PlaneBae came forward, identifying himself as - rom-com klaxon number two! - a retired pro footballer named Euan Holden. It's not yet totally clear whether things have progressed with his newfound love interest after baggage control, but it's fair to assume that the entire Internet is wishing them well.

As someone who is allergic to performative romance, this Twitter thread is exactly the sort of thing that my stony, cold heart should hate. There’s the basic privacy concerns, for one (is it really OK to take photos like this, even when the faces are scribbled out? Surely this must be a niche violation of GDPR?) There’s the real life rom-com plot line, and the terrible hashtag. There’s the inevitability that the story's next chapter will involve some sort of public proposal in Central Park involving a musical flash mob. And, most egregiously, there's the slew of content telling us that this isn't just romantic - it's #goals.

And yet, try as I might, I just can't hate on it. When we try so hard to gamify or optimise romance (whether that's through apps, math-making sites boasting unbeatable algorithms or pricey dating 'courses'), it's undeniably refreshing to see that serendipity of 'meeting someone in real life' still exists, however rare it might be.

Bring on the film adaptation starring Chris Evans and Emma Stone...

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