Miriam Gottfried and Trevor Williams’ eyes met in April 2016 on a Manhattan-bound B subway train from Brooklyn during the morning rush hour.

“This beautiful woman had the biggest eyeballs I had ever seen,’’ he said. “She was making googly eyes at me.”

Ms. Gottfried did not see it that way at all. “He was looking right at me and smiled,” she said.

Mr. Williams watched amused as a sort of pantomime played out, with her balancing a box, reading a book and holding an animated exchange with a woman next to her about a big suitcase. “She was like Mary Pickford in a silent movies,’’ he said. “Big eyes and curly hair.’’

Mr. Williams, determined to make a move before he got off the train, said he enlisted a “curmudgeonly older woman” to help pass his business card to her.