Mistletoe man rushing to the airport is like 'Love Actually' IRL
UPDATE: Dec. 28, 2016, 10:47 p.m. EST Added Tim Brown's comments.
Sometimes all it takes is one picture to bring out the romantic in all of us. And there are a lot of romantics out there if the number of shares on this photo is any indication.
Isobel Chillman tweeted this photo on Christmas Eve of a stressed-out looking man carrying nothing but mistletoe on the train to London's Gatwick Airport.
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She only saw him rushing away...
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... but by that point Twitter was dying to know what happened.
Everyone had visions of this:
But luckily, the man's story had a Hollywood ending, too.
The IRL Mistletoe Man, Tim Brown, identified himself in a reply to Chillman's tweet.
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Brown told Mashable that he's usually late when meeting his girlfriend Emma after her trips to Berlin. This time he decided to pick up the mistletoe to surprise her, and arrived early at the south terminal -- only to find out the flight had been switched to the north terminal at the last minute, hence the mad dash.
"I couldn't believe I was possibly going to be late AGAIN - hence the stressed out face!" he said.
But he made it, and the reunion sounds adorable.
"I produced the mistletoe from behind my back and she gasped and gave a big beaming smile and grabbed me in a lovely hug! We then kissed in front of smiling onlookers (as her two young kiddies groaned 'yuk!'"
On Christmas morning, Brown's son discovered his dad was an internet star -- classmates had been messaging, asking if his dad was Mistletoe Man.
"All of us were stunned, but our kids all loved it and kept checking on the tweet numbers," Brown said.
Both Brown and Emma are "absolutely staggered" by the amount of interest around the world in the story.
"Thank you thank you to Isobel for brightening up my day - it definitely made our first Christmas together in our new home," Brown said.
And thank you, Tim and Isobel, for restoring our faith in love in an otherwise rough year.
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Liza Hearon was the Deputy Editor for Mashable UK. Liza started her career in journalism writing about punk bands for a 'zine in Florida, and her wanderlust has led her to work for news organisations in Russia, Japan and now London. Prior to joining Mashable, she was the European homepage editor for the Wall Street Journal. Liza loves podcasts, karaoke and really, really spicy food.
