Contributed by: ElyseRomano on Wednesday, March 09 2011 @ 09:09 am
Last modified on Wednesday, May 24 2023 @ 12:29 pm
What's the craziest thing you've ever done for love? The most extreme? The wildest? The weirdest?
In preparation for Valentine's day, Laura T. Coffey, a TODAYshow.com contributor, took a look at some of the most insane and extraordinary things done in the name of romance.
It should come as no surprise that the Internet played a role in several of the crazy stories she uncovered. When an Englishwoman named Kelly Summers discovered in April of 2010 that the man she loved already had a longterm girlfriend, she turned to YouTube to air her grievances...and there were a lot of grievances to air. 62 sobbing, heartbroken videos later, Summers had developed a dedicated audience of 11,000 followers who listened faithfully to her stories about devastation and her efforts to recover. One listener - her ex - was particularly touched: "I'd never seen such raw emotion," Keith Tallis said, "and it made me realize how much I loved her."
What YouTube did for Summers, eBay nearly did for Sandi Firth and her son, James Doyan. After Firth divorced her husband in 2003, Doyan worried that his mother was lonely, so he decided to take matters into his own hands: by selling her on eBay. He posted a photo of her along with a brief description: "My Yiddishe Momma for Sale: Beautiful, Great Cook, Educated, Articulate, Family Focused, Caring, Priceless." He also noted that she was in "used condition" but was in "pretty good working order [with] no real defects or signs of wear and tear." Though Firth called her son "innovative" for his revolutionary approach to finding love, eBay pulled the ad in June 2010 on the grounds that it violated the site's "human remains and body parts policy."
Crazy romantic gestures don't have to be intended for an international audience of thousands online - they can be as simple as creating hand-written personal ads. A Harlem resident named Malik Turner did exactly that last year, posting ridiculously specific, and hand-written, personal ads on public telephones across Manhattan. He described himself in great detail, writing that he was single, worked as a "sorter/bagger" for a package delivery company, and loved Coney Island, Atlantic City, and the color red. His description of his dream girl was equally as specific: 21-45, blonde, "big-chested, curvy, leggy, voluptuous (NOT FAT)," and "willing to take turns paying on dates (NO GOLDDIGGERS!!!!!)." No word on whether or not his personal ads proved effective.
The Big Apple served as the backdrop for another story of the extreme lengths to which some people will go to find love. When Patrick Moberg was 21 years old, he caught sight of the girl of his dreams on a subway train. They "shared a moment," he said, and afterwards he couldn't get the image of the rosy-cheeked girl with blue gym shorts and a red flower in her hair out of his head. Out of his obsession, NYGirlOfMyDreams.com[*1] was born. He posted a sketch of the two of them (in which he labeled himself "Not insane") and described what they were both wearing when they caught each other's gaze. As luck would have it, a friend of hers found the site, recognized the description, and emailed Moberg. He updated his site one last time, saying "We've been put in touch with one another and we'll see what happens.... In our best interest, there will be no more updates to this website. Unlike all the romantic comedies and bad pop songs, you'll have to make up your own ending for this."