Look, we usually spend our time here railing against runaway budgets and bureaucratic incompetence. But every once in a while, a story comes along that reminds you the Bay Area — for all its dysfunction — is still a place where human beings have actual human moments.

A guy in the South Bay is searching for a woman he met twice in one week: once at SFO, and again the next day on the Caltrain-to-BART shuffle heading back to the airport. Both were non-revving on United — that's the airline employee perk where you fly standby, essentially for free, and pray to the load-factor gods that there's a spare seat. They bonded over the shared misery of trying to non-rev their way to Hong Kong, swapped first names, and started brainstorming backup plans together.

Then the chaos of standby travel did what it does. She ended up sprinting to a different gate, presumably rerouting through some creative itinerary to reach her final destination. He was left with a first name, the initials "KR," and the digital equivalent of a message in a bottle posted to the internet.

As one local put it: "How cute! I hope it works out."

Honestly? Same.

There's something charmingly analog about this whole thing. No dating app algorithm. No curated profile photos. Just two people commiserating in an airport about the very specific stress of flying space-available to Asia, and clicking. It's the kind of meet-cute that doesn't happen when everyone's face-down in their phones.

Now, will we pivot this into a rant about SFO's operational headaches? We could — the FAA's recent revocation of the waiver for parallel runway operations isn't exactly helping anyone's travel plans, standby or otherwise. But today isn't about that.

Today is about a guy looking for a girl, an airport that briefly wasn't terrible, and the slim but beautiful chance that the internet does something wholesome for once.

KR, if you're out there: the man wants to talk to you. And frankly, anyone who can navigate non-rev chaos with a sense of humor is already a keeper.

Godspeed to both of you — and to your boarding priorities.