Blind Bears Date Recap: April and Andy

Last semester, Blog announced Blind Bears, a blind dating service for Brown students that might just lead to the college romance you’ve spent an embarrassing amount of time dreaming of. Well, our first round of dates has wrapped up, and we’re reporting back.Today we have the tale of April and Andy*, two souls out there looking for love. At first the date didn’t go quite as planned. Though they had arranged to meet at the café in the RISD museum, it was entirely full when they arrived and, after a stop at an also-full Starbucks, ended up at the less-than-ideal date spot known as Au Bon Pain. Finally, though, they settled down and the mutual assessment could commence.April said, “Ideally, in my wildest fantasies, it would’ve been really great, you know? It would’ve flowed really well…we would’ve had more things in common, maybe. I also feel like I like people who have a certain sense of humor, but it’s not like everyone can have that.” April noted that Andy seemed a little nervous, but she also worried about carrying on good conversation after staying up late studying for finals the night before. “Also,” April added, “being in Au Bon Pain was not a top choice.”Andy seemed to think the date was “pretty standard.” “We found that we had a lot of things in common as we kept talking.” Both of them stressed that the other was very nice and was clearly putting in effort to connect. Still, it may not have been the stuff of romance novels. “Was it the best first date I’ve ever been on? No,” Andy said, “But again, it’s a blind date, what are you gonna do?” April noted that maybe blind dates would be best spent doing something active, rather than just relying on conversation alone. “Especially for a first date, I think it can be good to have something to do besides sit and talk, because there’s less pressure to be really interesting.”Romance on college campuses often skews toward phenomena like hookup culture and Tinder. April even recalled that her only prior impression of Andy was that “earlier this year he had gone on a Tinder date with one of my friends.” A blind date could be an obvious answer to the issue. Blind dates rely on matching because of personality and interests rather than looks or friend groups. “With hookups…it’s way less about personality,” April said. “With a blind date, it’s nice because…you are forced to actually get to know the person. But you’re also kind of stuck if you don’t like the person, either.”Andy is not a fan of hookup culture: “I’ve always taken more of the dating approach. And that’s worked well for me, I think. Everyone talks about hook-up culture, but very rarely do I hear of any of my friends doing this regularly. I’m not opposed to it. I think, whatever you want, if you’re happy with it, that’s cool. It’s not really my thing.” Still, he would prefer a non-blind date. “I feel like you might have to go on twenty blind dates before anything happens.”In the end, no matter how many surveys or questionnaires you answer, there’s no way to predict how a date of any kind will go. “There’s no magic recipe,” Andy said. “If we filled out more information, and if you matched me to an even more specific set of criteria, would it be any different? Maybe not…A blind date is still a blind date until you’ve met the person. Sometimes you don’t know why something works or it doesn’t.”Andy added, “People are shy. Fundamentally, you don’t want to put yourself in a situation where something might suck. But you have to. So I think that’s kind of the big issue.”April and Andy's date may not have been a love story for the ages, but April still has faith in the blind date as a concept, which is why she went in with high hopes. “This would’ve been a really good story about how you met someone,” she said.Want to be matched and possibly be featured in an article like this one on The Blognonian? Fill out our application survey here.*names have been changed for the sake of confidentiality (if you didn’t already get that)Interviews have been edited for clarity and lengthImages via Kenji Endo '18, via, and via