A love struck man who was determined to track down a girl he'd hit it off with in a bar went to great lengths to find her, and has unexpectedly helped people make new friends in the process.
University of Calgary student Carlos Zetina hit it off with a woman called Nicole, but when he realised she'd given him the wrong phone number, he was determined not to let her get away.
According to the Daily Mail, he emailed 247 women called Nicoles or with variations on the name in the Canadian university's directory, writing: 'If your name is Nicole and you're from Holland and you think Nietschze is depressing then text me.'
The Nicole's started emailing back and forth and one even set up a "Nicole from last night" Facebook group to aid the search, and more than a dozen of them even met up at a bar the following day.
Carlos' efforts have paid off as the real Nicole has been located and they are planning to meet soon, as it turns out she gave him the wrong phone number by accident.
According to Huffington Post Canada, Carlos sent the email because he didn't want Nicole to think he was a "bad guy who didn't text back."
As well as hundreds of students, his message also found its way to professors called Nicole or with similar names.
And the Nicoles quickly started emailing back and forth, according to Masters Psychology student Nicole Macmillan.
"Somebody responded only to the Nicoles and the group and said, 'Should we all tell him that we're his Nicole, all 250 of us?'. And then it just blew up from there."
Speaking of their meet up the next day, she added: "It was so freaky because we showed up to have a drink and we all kind weirdly looked alike. It was really strange."
The story had a happy ending when word reached the real Nicole on social media via the network of namesakes.
As she's an exchange student she didn't have a University of Calgary email address.
"I'm the exchange student from Holland who got brought home by Carlos last night and thinks that Nietzsche is quite depressing. Don't have an u of c email so didn't get the beautiful email myself, but the powerful Nicoles helped me get in touch.
"Would love to meet all of you sometime in the future."