A young man at the University of Calgary turned to the power of technology to find the woman he met last week after she gave him the wrong number.
The man, Carlos Zetina, is a first year student at the school and says he took a young woman named Nicole and her friend home on Thursday night. He got her phone number, but it turned out to be a wrong number.
That’s when he took matters online and ended up sending out a mass e-mail to over 200 women at the University of Calgary, all named Nicole.
He said he sent the email because he didn't want Nicole to think he was "a bad guy who didn't text back."
"We met at the campus bar and we talked and had struck a pretty interesting conversation," said Zetina. "She gave me her number, but I guess she accidentally gave me the wrong one because when I texted her the next day, a different person messaged me back that it wasn't her."
After receiving the note the next day and reading the message, a group of the Nicoles got together to form a Facebook group in an attempt to help Carlos connect with the real Nicole.
Many of the ladies met at the school on Sunday morning and told the media that the e-mail brought them all together.
"We should meet up this is fun, what a great thing and we ended up making a girl gang essentially," said Nicole Thompson.
Nicolette Riley said it helped her feel less lonely on campus too.
"I really appreciate the sense of community."
As for the lovesick young man, the group understood that it was a mistake and he honestly wanted to reach out to the woman he met.
"People are looking to connect and the fact we all met online and chose to meet in person speaks that people are looking from community and groups of friends," Thomspon said.
Soon enough, a post appeared on the page from the real Nicole who explained that she never intended to give Carlos a wrong number and wanted to contact him too.
Nicole Toetenei, who is an exchange student from Holland, added that she wasn’t on his email list and only learned about the search after hearing about it on social media.
Zetina said later that the Nicole he had been searching for texted him.
"We're planning to hang out maybe next week," said Zetina. "I really didn't expect this to become a big thing."
(With files from Stephanie Wiebe and The Canadian Press)
