Love At First Sight
Everybody has done it. Yes, dreaming about meeting a flaming love interest while doing something fairly mundane. But at the same time, it’s something you rarely do or something sporadic.
The perfect imagined setting for meeting this person by pure chance is usually somewhere like on a holiday, a train ride or some other place that makes you believe that it could only have been the work of cupid because of how rarely it actually happens.
Destiny
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People love to think that every action we take, or don’t take, will determine our destiny. This is exactly the case with not just two people, but four on the same flight. Their destinies became forever entwined by the decisions each of them made.
The narrator is also the catalyst that begins the entire saga with one simple question.
Long Flight Alone
Instagram / roseybeeme
Rosey Blair was heading back to Dallas with her boyfriend. The only problem was that their seats were not together. They were indeed sitting next to each other, but she was a full row ahead of him.
Obviously this was less than ideal so, being the confident woman that she is, Rosey immediately thought up a plan to remedy the situation. Her choice would change everyone’s life forever.
Confident
Instagram / roseybeeme
Rosey did what some of us are too shy to do. She asked the young woman sitting in one of the seats that was, in fact, next to her boyfriend’s seat if she wouldn’t mind too terribly if she could switch place with her.
If you don’t ask you’ll never know, right? The beautiful 20-something woman was fine with the swap but asked that if she wasn’t happy with her seat-mate if she could move back later. It turned out that that wouldn’t be the problem.
Switching Seats
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Excited to be sitting next to her boyfriend for hopefully the entire flight, she quickly packed up her carry on. As the ladies switched seats before the long plane ride Rosey jokingly said that she may end up sitting next to the love of her life.
No one knew how spot-on those words would end up being and little did she know that it could really be the case.
Match-Making
Rosey Blair /Twitter
It wasn’t long before the plane was fully boarded and ready to take off. Rosey poked her boyfriend to get his attention and pointed forward toward her old seat. Next to the girl was a very handsome-looking young man.
Rosey beamed a wide smile at her boyfriend. Their in-flight entertainment was about to begin. They were both completely invested in whether Rosey’s match-making prediction would now come true.
Eavesdropping
Rosey Blair /Twitter
It’s truly amazing how we sometimes determine destiny by the actions we take today, even if we are completely unaware of it most of the time. Rosey watched as the travelers began a polite conversation and was brimming with joy.
She really wanted to share the sweet encounter that she felt was, in no small part, as a result of her. So that’s exactly what she did.
Love Story
Rosey Blair /Twitter
Rosey decided it would be a great love story that her twitter followers could relate to or perhaps daydream about their own whimsical mystery meeting one day.
So she began to tweet some of the conversation that she overheard from the couple in front of her. She didn’t realize just how out of hand this was about to get.
For The World To See
Rosey Blair /Twitter
Rosey had one hour of free data on the plane so she decided that she would use it to give her followers inspiration and hope. She began broadcasting the interaction between the two travelers, giving the spectators juicy details with each picture.
“They’re both personal trainers. They are both vegetarians.” She thought they made a great couple and that’s where it all starts going pear-shaped.
Clueless
Rosey Blair /Twitter
The young lady in front of her still had absolutely no idea that she was being filmed or having her picture taken. Worse still, she had no clue that those pictures were being broadcast to the entire world with a complete stranger narrating her entire conversation.
Would the couple find out that they were live and becoming more and more famous the longer the flight continued?
Flirty And Fun
Rosey Blair /Twitter
“They touched arms a few times” Rosey posts, perhaps making an unspoken dialogue up about the couple that seemed completely unaware of what was happening behind them. “No wedding rings in sight.” She continues,
“She went to the bathroom with her ponytail up and came back with her hair down.” According to Rosey, this is definitely a flirty move, or so she makes it out to be.
Leaving Together
Rosey Blair /Twitter
The plane trip finally came to an end, much to the dismay of the growing fans. A final picture from Rosey shows the man and woman walking away together toward baggage claim.
But the story didn’t end with the couple leaving, in fact, it was only after it went viral that it really even started. And it wasn’t the happily ever after that Rosey or her fans had hoped for.
Internet Sensation
Rosey Blair /Twitter
The whole story that was shared off of Twitter and that had racked up more than 900,000 likes, 370,000 retweets, and 11,000 comments became an internet success.
We will never know how many people watched live or shared the original tweet because it was deleted very soon after the love story took a turn for the worse.
Internet Celebs
Twitter / Wale Gates
PrettyPlaneGirl, as she was named by her fans, found out the very next day that she was an internet celebrity. She had added PlaneBae, the guy she’d been talking with, and their social media blew up when Rosey, along with a lot of other people, found them online.
He, being in the limelight before, enjoyed his renewed fame, but who was he?
Soccer Star
Instagram / Euanholden
PlaneBae turned out to be Euan Holden, a retired pro soccer player. And it seemed that he might have been more on the ball about being photographed than PrettyPlaneGirl was. He responded to the original tweet with this response, ‘Hilarious… Knew you were taking pictures!’
Euan was reliving his glory days and it only got better for him.
Loving The Limelight
Instagram / Euanholden
He seemed to revel in the attention he was now getting, even going on a number of morning shows, including “Good Morning America,” to talk about the viral story. He did mention that his seatmate on the plane was a “very, very, very lovely girl.”
But things didn’t go so well for PrettyPlaneGirl though…
From Bad To Worse
Rosey Blair /Twitter
First people found her online. She wasn’t expecting anything of the sort and couldn’t think of the first thing to do in a situation like this, so she tried her best to ignore it. Then people found her in real life and things became way too real and scary.
We only know her as Helen now and all that she asks for is for people to respect her desire to remain anonymous. Her words were very clear on that point.
Unwanted Attention
Rosey Blair /Twitter
“I did not ask for and do not seek attention. #PlaneBae is not a romance – it is a digital-age cautionary tale about privacy, identity, ethics, and consent.”
Just like that the entire internet, as well as Euan, changed their tune about the entire débâcle. Euan asked social media users to respect PrettyPlaneGirl’s privacy. The story went from swooning to cautionary in a matter of days
Apologies All Round
Rosey Blair /Twitter
Rosey, too, issued an apology for her actions. “The last thing I want to do is remove agency and autonomy from another woman,” she wrote on Twitter.
“I wish I could communicate the shame I feel in having done this. But I truly feel that at this point my feelings are irrelevant. This may be coming too little too late.”
Statement
Rosey Blair /Twitter
“I am a young professional woman. On July 2, I took a commercial flight from New York to Dallas. Without my knowledge or consent, other passengers photographed me and recorded my conversation with a seatmate.”
“They posted images and recordings to social media and speculated unfairly about my private conduct. Please continue to respect my privacy, and my desire to remain anonymous.”
Speaking Out
Rosey Blair /Twitter
On July 13, #PrettyPlaneGirl spoke out for the first time through a statement to Business Insider via her lawyer, Wesley Mullen of New York City-based law firm Mullen PC. It is upsetting that people, strangers, pushed her so far that she even felt the need to hire professional help and protection.
Her following statement is detailed below:
Taking It Too Far
Rosey Blair /Twitter
“Since then, my personal information has been widely distributed online. Strangers publicly discussed my private life based on patently false information. I have been shamed and insulted. Voyeurs have come looking for me online and in the real world.”
The reality set in, not only for poor Helen but for millions of people around the world that had been following her story. Nobody would want this happening to them for simply being friendly on a plane flight. Her plea was heard worldwide.
Leave Me Alone
Rosey Blair /Twitter
I did not ask for and do not seek attention. #PlaneBae is not a romance – it is a digital-age cautionary tale about privacy, identity, ethics, and consent. Please continue to respect my privacy, and my desire to remain anonymous.”
The resounding response to her heartfelt statement was agreement. Most people felt bad for joining in what seemed like lighthearted fun. When it turned ugly the world supported her in the only way it knew how. They left her alone.