25-year-old New Zealander, Reese McKee, started a social media campaign that fired the imagination of thousands of romantics on the internet. His plea for help in locating the whereabouts of his soul-mate went viral within hours. In fact, he had to delete the campaign because it all started to spiral out of control.

I’m not quite sure what to make of Reese – sweet romantic dude, or crazy internet stalker. Maybe I’ll let you be the judge of that. Here’s his story:

In his original campaign, Reese said that he met a girl on New Year’s Eve, 2012, in Hong Kong. He spotted her crying alone on the side of a road; she was lost and couldn’t find her friends. “I just cheered her up,” Reese said. “I sort of have this undeniably bad sense of humor that no one can resist laughing at.” The two spent the night partying, dancing and talking, before the girl caught up with her friends again. As they parted, she told Reese that her name was ‘Katie’ and she was from DC. She let him take a picture of her, and left with these final words: “Find Me.”

The next morning, as Reese looked at Katie’s photograph on his phone, a flood of great memories came back to him and he was determined to find her. Unfortunately, he couldn’t remember the e-mail address she’d given him, so he decided to turn to Facebook for help.

Photos: Facebook

“I was hurt a long time ago,” his campaign read. “The hopeless romantic in me was locked away when he got hurt because it was too much. For too long, this has affected my relationships, and I’ve failed people,” he wrote. But now, his search for Katie was also about “finding me, finding myself and who I know I can be. I hope to find her. And along the way, find myself.”

“The chances are billions to one, but I like those odds. This is me putting all my chips on the table because it’s go hard or go home and I am not going to give in.” These words, apparently, were enough to touch the hearts of thousands of netizens, who began to frantically search for ‘Katie from DC’. They tracked down the real Katie in no time at all, and bombarded her with tons of messages. It all got so out of hand that Katie had to delete her social profile.

To make matters worse, Reese’s worldwide manhunt received widespread media attention. Although he refused to make an appearance on T.V., his story has been covered extensively. He admits that he didn’t realize his campaign could attract so much attention, and says that things quickly spiraled out of control.

“We found the girl,” said Reese. “She is from DC, she’s not there at the moment, but she’s sorta taken down all her public profiles for a bit.” The general impression is that Katie isn’t too happy about being found. But MailOnline has a different story to tell. They tracked down 20-year-old Katie, to get a statement from her. According to their reports, she’s very much single and is actually “waiting for him to get in touch.”

Photos: Facebook

Katie, a student of Georgetown University, Virginia, is currently spending her junior year in the south of France. “I haven’t made up my mind yet about whether I like him or not,” she said. “I’m still waiting for him to get in touch.”

“I don’t have a boyfriend. But I don’t want to say anything until I’ve spoken to Reese. And he hasn’t been in contact yet.” A date with him isn’t totally out of the question, according to her.

Reese, it seems, has decided to let all the media attention cool off before he approaches Katie. That, I must say, is a smart move.

via NEWS.com.au