​In preparation for a Valentine's Day event (a "Love-in-Transit Party," to be specific), at which the New York Times' Alan Feuer will read poems based on Missed Connections and Sophie Blackall of Missed Connections illustration fame will sign copies of her book, the gossip-hungry MTA is seeking tales of your transit romance. "Did you find love on a bus? Feel your heart race on a subway? Make shy eye contact on the evening commuter train?" Get in touch and tell them! If you did anything more graphic, obscene, or animalistic, tell us!

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Yesterday President Obama was in town messing up your commute fund-raising. His fourth stop of the whirlwind tour was at the Apollo Theater where, as you see in the video above, he expanded his known talents into the musical arena. Just a few bars come out -- "I'm...so in love," from Al Green's "Let's Stay Together" (you know, Obama's 2012 re-election theme) -- to the cheers of the crowd.

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​They say beggars can't be choosers, but one man refuses to accept the age old wisdom. Robert Darling commutes to Manhattan from his New Jersey apartment twice a week to look for a bride, but he won't marry just anyone; his future wife has to be loaded. He dons a cardboard sign that reads, "Hi friends, I'm looking for a wealthy lady to be my wife."

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​Our good friend science has made another groundbreaking discovery about human relationships. This time it's that "marriages are more satisfying when the wife is thinner than the husband." What? Yes. Actual researchers followed actual newlywed couples for four years, checking up on them every six months to gauge happiness in accord with size. Men with a higher Body Mass Index than their wives were "a little happier" to start with than those with the same or a lower BMIs. This stayed the same throughout the four-year period analyzed. Meanwhile, while wives weren't really affected by the BMIs of their husbands at the beginning of their marriages, by the fourth year, "the wives whose BMI was lower than that of their husbands were significantly happier than those who had the same BMI, or a higher one."

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Feinblatt and Mintz

​New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, in a gesture that shows a bit of his softer side, has offered to marry his chief policy adviser, John Feinblatt, and his partner of 14 years, Jonathan Mintz, who is the city's commissioner for consumer affairs. Delicately, Bloomberg mentioned that he didn't even know if the two wanted to marry, but if they did, well -- "If you'd like me to do it, I'd really love to," he said to Feinblatt, who got the go-ahead from Mintz, setting in motion the plan for "City Hall's first gay wedding," reports the New York Times. The two, who have two daughters together and took them ring shopping after the proposal, will be married on July 24, the first day that same-sex marriages will happen in New York City, on the lawn of Gracie Mansion.

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​Last November, two Columbia students launched DateMySchool, an online dating service exclusively for college students. Columbia University Business School students Balazs Alexa, 28, and Jean Meyer, 29, came up with the idea for the site when they were discussing the "lack of dateable women" in their male-heavy business school. Alexa's girlfriend piped up, telling them that girls in her social work program had a similar frustration at the lack of males in their classes. The young upstarts realized there was a demand for a new place to cross paths on campus, and DateMySchool was born. Originally the site only served Columbia and NYU students, but it quickly expanded. In the last week, the site has grown to serve 204 new schools. DateMySchool now serves a total of 350 schools and has upwards of 25,000 registered users.

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​According to a new study, two-thirds of heterosexual couples "reported" that the guy said "I love you" first. Does this portend a new era of male sensitivity, despite men being such alleged slackers? Does this mean that women, "despite their [alleged] reputation for being emotionally driven and relationship-oriented," are actually anti-sentimental cold-hearted she-beasts? What, exactly, does this mean? You might guess that, as the researchers learned, men's motivations were different than women's motivations.

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Despite our cold, corroded hearts, this video from an innocent bystander ostensibly hoping to capture the gorgeous sunset -- but instead getting on tape a couple's engagement moment -- kinda even brought out a few of what we call "eye tears." Unless it's staged! Be it not staged. Why must we be so cynical? Anyway, this reminds us of the movie Blow-Up, except way, way happier. Update: The videographer speaks, after the jump!

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​Last week, the New York Times was positively thrilled to have located a real-life old-timey hobo in New York City (New York City!?) and wrote about the discovery breathlessly, with a bunch of old-timey real-life hobo references (see: "ramblin' man," "odd jobs," "wide open spaces," "front teeth missing," etc.). After the hobo indicated a desire to get off the island, it was presumed that he'd be seen no more, that he would dissipate like the dusty relic of another time that he was made out to be, a memory for Corey Kilgannon, the writer of the piece, and the New York Times reader lucky enough to have stumbled upon it before reaching his or her paywall limit. Ah, but a hobo cannot be controlled! A hobo goes where he wants to! So does the New York Times!

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​There's harmony among the boroughs, but chaos in the state senate thanks to one of Albany's "worst-kept secrets": Diane Savino, who represents Brooklyn and Staten Island, is dating Jeffrey Klein of the Bronx and Westchester. Page Six says the couple is "known as 'Klavino,' a la Brangelina" and keeps getting caught together -- canoodling, probably -- "at upstate hot spots and holiday parties since last year's primary." The problem is that the pair's closeness may have contributed to Savino leaving the Democratic Conference and joining Klein's Independent Democratic Conference, thereby "narrowly dividing the Senate." As if it wasn't wacky enough up there already.

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