Tired of empty complaints about the dating scene at Tufts, the Daily Features section took matters into its own hands last week. A recent advertisement on TuftsLife.com solicited students to sign up for blind dates funded by the Daily, with the agreement that participants would be interviewed before and after.
Simply based on the number of e-mails that flooded our inbox, it seemed clear this campus is truly date-deprived. With more than enough responses, setting up the dates was a basic task of coordinating available times — and trying to use basic information to make good matches. The number of males who responded was the limiting factor, but the Daily managed to plan four dates.
Daters were interviewed prior to their meet-up, at which point they were given the first name of their date or a particular feature (plaid scarf, carrying a magazine, grey coat, etc.) that would be identifiable. Most of the dates took place at the Danish Pastry House, and the Daily agreed to reimburse participants for their coffee (on three of the dates, the guy fronted the money for the girl). Several days after the date, participants had follow-up interviews to assess their experiences.
Pre-date: jitterbugs and butterflies
Before their dates, many of the participants shared common anxieties. One concern was walking in and recognizing his or her date.
"I'm kind of worried it might be someone that I already know and have awkward experiences with in the past," freshman Rebecca Plante said.
The classic scenario of long pauses in conversation was another fear.
"I'm nervous we won't have stuff to talk about, or we'll resort to ‘How many brothers and sisters do you have?'" junior Meghan McCooey said.
Despite these pre-date butterflies, the possibility of meeting someone new was what led most of the daters to let the Daily play matchmaker.
"I guess I thought it would be a fun, interesting and a random way to meet a person," junior Michael Laha said. "I personally did not have any secret dream to meet the love of my life or anything like that. I think it's a funny outing."
Most of the daters shared Laha's, "Why not?" attitude, and some were pushed to do it by their friends.
"One of my friends is always talking about how she has crushes on everybody. I said, ‘Well, maybe you should do this thing on TuftsLife' and she said no," freshman Khadijah Hall said. "I was like, ‘I'll do it then.'"
The blind date also provided a contrast to what can become a tired dating routine on a college campus. Participants seemed to have a similar perspective on the way relationships progress in the college environment.
"It's terrible! It's not that the people are terrible, it's just the situation is not working out for me," Plante said. "Maybe it's just me."
But clearly, it isn't.
"I think there's too much emphasis on going to impersonal locations on the weekends," junior Jeremy Strauss said. "That often facilitates impersonal interactions, and because people don't know much about each other because they're just going out for a night, there isn't much incentive to get to know someone."
"I feel like Tufts has extremes in terms of the romantic scene on campus," senior Geoanna Bautista said. "One extreme is just hooking up or [being] very physical, or the other is where people jump into relationships very intensely to the point where they're living together. It's either they're just hooking up or they're in a relationship, so dating is really not there."
"I don't drink at all, so I don't meet people at parties," sophomore Paul Magel said. "It's mildly more difficult than it could be. I end up constantly making new friends and nothing ever goes anywhere."
With shared pessimism about the current romantic offerings at Tufts, the blind dates were a welcome change of pace — but that didn't necessarily translate into successful dates.
Mismatched? For some, the Daily strikes out
Bautista and Magel said that their different motives for going on a date proved to be somewhat of a barrier, as Magel had more serious intentions.
"We definitely did not have the same reasons at all," Magel said. "She told me she went just for kicks and giggles, and I wasn't exactly hoping to find my soulmate, but I felt like the person going should at least have a cursory interest."
"I just think that coming in, I had much [lower] expectations. I wasn't coming in really trying to find a true love or anything," Bautista said. "He had different expectations than I did. That imbalance of interests made it kind of awkward in general."
Beyond their initial mismatched intentions, both found it interesting to learn about someone new.
"He was a part of a very different circle and that was definitely interesting to learn about," Bautista said.
Both said they would consider going on other blind dates in the future, but Bautista said a match based more on common interests would be beneficial.
"She was ridiculously active — clubs here, there and everywhere. She was really busy," Magel said. "I feel like with the amount of things she does I would only see her on the way to something important."
The initial introduction to Strauss was a memorable aspect of Plante's date.
"The moment where we first saw each other and we weren't sure, and he was like, ‘Are you Rebecca?' and I was like, ‘Are you Jeremy?' — that was a little bit awkward and funny," she said.
Luckily for the two, the rest of the date was smoother sailing.
"It was easier than I thought it would be just to chat with someone and talk to them about all kinds of stuff," Plante said. "It was just a really nice experience having some time just to get to know a stranger. It was [a] bit odd, like anything else."
"It was well worth my time to sit down for an hour or two and converse with a female in an environment that did not involve T.I. or Lil' Jon," Strauss said.
The date between Laha and McCooey yielded mixed responses.
"I think we had a pretty good conversation and we got to know each other," McCooey said.
But Laha was a bit more critical of the date.
"I would not say it was a success. The reason would be simply because I think we weren't compatible," he said. "There was no chemistry. I think we gave it a sincere try getting to know each other but we didn't end up having a very engaging conversation. She was a very different person than I was. She was a very dedicated tennis player and had a strong, independent personality. I thought that was very cool, but I guess our general interests didn't overlap."
Even though the Daily may not have arranged any future marriages, students who participated in the experiment felt that the regular addition of blind dates to the Tufts social scene would be welcome.
"I think people think it's kind of weird and people would be scared to do it, but if everybody got into it, that would be awesome," Plante said.
"No matter what happens, you got to know one more person that you never would have known before," McCooey said. "Maybe you'll become friends, maybe you'll start dating, but you at least formed some sort of relationship."
Interested in going on a blind date? E-mail tuftsfeatures@gmail.com.
