LEWISTON – Ron Jean doesn’t know her name, but he knows what to tell her.

“I’d like to take her out, go to someplace nice to eat, and just talk to her and see if we have anything in common,” said Jean, 73, a Lewiston city councilor and a former teacher.

She is a 60-something woman with blond hair and small curls on either side of her face. He’s seen her several times since 1995, but never spoken to her face-to-face.

He’d like to, however.

“She was just very beautiful, and I wanted to meet her,” he said.

He stopped short of hiring a private investigator but began running advertisements last week with his phone number, hoping she’ll call. So far, she hasn’t.

His ad describes the woman as in her 60s, about 5-foot-6. He knows she’s been divorced and suspects she was married once before that. Jean himself has been divorced twice.

“I don’t recall why I know that, but I think her first husband died,” Jean said. “It’s been such a long time ago, it seems a little vague now.”

He first glimpsed this dream woman about 12 years ago, sipping coffee in a Friendly’s.

“She got up to go to the ladies’ room, so I waited for her to come out,” he said. She never did, and didn’t see her leave, either.

It didn’t stop him, however. He got her name and telephone number from a mutual acquaintance and called her a few days later. The phone call didn’t go well.

“She got very angry,” Jean said. She told him she was recently divorced and not interested in a relationship.

“I don’t know if she was angry about the divorce or something else, but I threw her name and number away,” he said. He’s long forgotten both – but not her face. He’s glimpsed her a few times since then at public events but has never spoken to her.

“I’m not always scanning the audience, looking for her,” he said. “But I notice when I see her.”

He last saw her in March leaving a Mid-Coast Symphony Orchestra concert at the Franco-American Heritage Center, with a brown-haired female companion.

“I was sitting there in my car, and I just froze,” he said. “I should have gotten out and introduced myself, but I couldn’t think of anything to say. I just sat there, frozen, and I’m very angry with myself for that.”

But it prompted him to begin searching again.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen, but maybe someone knows her,” he said. “I’d just like to sit down and talk to her.”