B.C. dentist heads to Ireland to find girl he met for two minutes

A love-sick dentist from Kelowna, British Columbia is travelling across Ireland in search of a woman he met for two minutes more than a year ago, proving that all those Sandra Bullock rom-coms are way more plausible than you previously thought.

Sandy Crocker, 34, was in Ireland on a family vacation a year ago, when he stopped by a café in Ennistymon, County Clare. There she was: a young Irish woman with reddish-brown hair and freckles. The two chatted for a few minutes, but poor Crocker didn't have the nerve to get her number — or even her name, reports the BBC.

"We were on our way to the Cliffs of Moher that morning and we stopped in Ennistymon to grab a bite to eat. She was eating and I didn't want to interrupt her meal so I waited until I noticed her leaving and spoke to her. I asked her for directions to the Cliffs of Moher," he tells The Clare People.

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"I was leaving Ireland a day later so, at first, I didn't see the point in pursuing things more — but after she left I decided that I had to. So we paid our bill quickly and myself and my brother started looking for her. We searched the town for an hour or two and couldn't find her, so we went to the Cliffs but later that evening we came back and looked for her again for another two hours. But there was no trace of her."

Two days later, he returned to Canada. But for Crocker, the memory of that auburn-haired beauty was one he just couldn't shake. He'd meet other women as the weeks and months passed, but none could measure up to the memory of the Irish lass from Ennistymon.

"She was one of those people who seemed the most genuine caring person you'd ever meet," Crocker tells the BBC. "I stood up and asked for directions and asked for the time - if I had just paid her a compliment, told her she was amazing, I could have put this to rest."

So he did what any inexplicably optimistic and insanely romantic young man would do, and hopped on a plane back to Ireland to see if he could track her down. Crocker will spend a month looking for the comically nondescript woman, and if he can't find her, at least he'll know he tried.

Helping him in his quest is pretty much all of the world's mainstream English-speaking media. His story has been featured by the BBC, ABC, CBC, the Globe and Mail, TIME, CTV, NPR, the Daily Mail, the Huffington Post, Jezebel and — of course — the Cosmetic Dentistry Guide.

Crocker is being portrayed as everything from a "Lovesick romeo", to "Lovestruck" to "besotted", and his quest as both "quixotic" and "fairytale".

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The National Post consulted with U.K. bookmaker Ladbrokes, Ireland, and discovered that they have assigned 50/1 odds on Cocker marrying the mystery woman, giving a 4/5 odds that she is already married.

TIME reports that though he hasn't found her yet, he's having a gosh darned good time.

"He has been invited out to dinner, to house parties and has even met a cast member of HBO's Game of Thrones."

Cocker isn't the first one to throw caution to the wind and try to track down someone they only met fleetingly. Thousands of people do it every day on Craigslist's "missed connections."

This past Valentine's Day, the Washington Post rounded up their faves, including one that is even vaguer than Cocker's.

The Atlantic recently compiled the best missed connections from the Burning Man Festival this year, including this doozy.

We'll probably never know if crotchless panties and green goatee ever found each other, but if Cocker by some chance finds his mystery woman, you can bet we'll all be hearing about it.

And of course, if you happen to be the Irish woman our lovesick dentist is looking for, visit www.pof.com and search for "Travel-bug-4u".