What began as a joke in the Cathcart Hall lobby resulted in blind dates for 40 freshmen on Valentine\u2019s Day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Freshmen Evie Boyd and Gracie Steelman were joking around with some friends about their upcoming plans for Valentine\u2019s Day when they decided to post on social media, asking their close friends if anyone would be interested in being set up on a blind date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe were really surprised by how many people were actually interested,\u201d Steelman said. \u201cWe had over 40 people respond. We ended up making a list of all of the participants, then picked out the pairs based on their personalities. We were friends with everyone who signed up, so it wasn\u2019t hard to match people up. All we did was text the boys a time to pick the girls up and a location for them to eat dinner.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Steelman and Boyd rounded up all 20 women in Cathcart, then escorted them out to the designated date\u2019s car, took their picture and sent them off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOur goal was to set up a fun night for a bunch of our friends who wouldn\u2019t be doing anything on Valentine\u2019s Day,\u201d Steelman said. \u201cMost people said they had a good time and made new friendships. We even got three second-dates out of it. Sending off 20 couples on blind dates was a lot, but hearing about everyone\u2019s nights afterwards made all of our funny efforts worth it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Freshman Ashlyn Voss was one friend who expressed interest in the idea of a blind date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI was really hesitant to do this because I thought it would be awkward, but I decided to do it since I had nothing else to do that night,\u201d Voss said. \u201cMy date was super sweet and an absolute gentleman. We had good conversations and a great time. He brought me flowers, opened my door and paid for my dinner. I would recommend this to everyone because it is a cool way to meet people that you normally wouldn\u2019t talk to, or even know.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Freshman Tyler Szostek also participated in the Valentine\u2019s Day activities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI would do this process again, but only if I was good friends with the person who would be setting me up on the blind date,\u201d Szostek said. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of exciting to see who your date is going to be and how the night is going to go. I would recommend it to a friend, for sure, because it\u2019s a great way to put yourself out there, and you never know what could happen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The process ended up yielding a fun night, not only for the freshmen going on the dates, but for the matchmakers themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cGracie [Steelman] and I both agree it was the most fun Valentine\u2019s Day we have ever had,\u201d Boyd said. \u201cIt was really fun because we were close with all the girls and boys who participated. The boys all brought their blind dates flowers or chocolates without us even having to tell them to.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Boyd said that afterwards, they had several people \u2014 both men and women \u2014 text them, saying how much fun they had. Boyd said it started as a joke, but ended up being one of their favorite nights of freshman year yet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What began as a joke in the Cathcart Hall lobby resulted in blind dates for 40 freshmen on Valentine\u2019s Day. Freshmen Evie Boyd and Gracie Steelman were joking around with…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15197,"featured_media":15833,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15197"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15817"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15818,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15817\/revisions\/15818"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}