Written by Kayleigh Tritschler and Tiane Davis
The Campus Activities Board (CAB) organized a blind date event on Valentine’s Day in the Student Center pit where the paired couples ate dinner, played a Kahoot game and decorated cookies.
“It started as a joke, and then we were like, ‘Maybe we have something here,’” CAB director Abby Stinnett said. “I just wanted to try and have more events and thought it would be a fun little thing to do.”
CAB picked five couples after students filled out a Google form. Initially, 115 forms were submitted. To break that down from there, CAB sent out a new form.
“Then we sent out a second Google form with a more specific personality question,” Stinnett said. “I think we only had 85 fill that out of the 115. We read through all of the responses and picked people who kind of answered similar dream vacations — I think — and an ideal date.”
Junior marketing major Abel Shelburne, one of the people who won the Kahoot game, said the activities were planned well, especially with a sense of awkwardness going into it.
“I thought that whoever coordinated the event did a really good job of pairing people up,” Shelburn said. “We just kind of talked about what our majors were, where we were from. We found out we were both homeschooled.”
Shelburn said he thought it was beneficial to be put in a situation where he was forced to interact with someone he might not have had the chance to meet on a normal day.
“I would say it was definitely a very positive kind of thing,” Shelburne said. “You know, for a lot of guys — and I’m sure girls on campus — talking to people of the opposite sex is oftentimes awkward, and I think this was a great facilitator of that.”
One participant, junior Sam Stebbins, already knew some of the other participants and said he was glad to get free food on Valentine’s Day.
“The overall experience was not a bad way to get free dinner for the night,” Stebbins said. “There is an inherent awkwardness in the idea of CAB blind dates, but the CAB staff seemed to get that. Also the fact I knew several of the other guys who were on blind dates was very funny.”
