By the time Valentine’s Day rolled around, there were no anonymous notes slipped under my door and no bouquet of roses from a secret admirer. It seemed there was only one plausible solution to save my first Valentine’s Day at Harvard: Datamatch.
Datamatch is a Harvard-invented matchmaking service. It started as a solution to Harvard students’ annual loneliness; it has since grown to encompass over 30 campuses. Their website explains: “Datamatch was founded back in 1994 by some Harvard students who decided that February was just much too sad of a time in Cambridge… Datamatch has become a Valentine’s Day tradition, with tens of thousands of students annually signing up every year for fun questions, new connections, and free food (yes, sometimes there is such a thing as free lunch).” To the outsider, it might seem that Datamatch and Tinder are one and the same. Isn’t Datamatch simply a glorified Tinder, with a few more claims of compatibility and testing?
Nonetheless, I was curious. I began to fill out my profile: I selected my favorite photos of myself before highlighting my love for country music and the outdoors. After thirty minutes of contemplation, I felt assured that a cowboy boot-wearing poet would certainly match with me. Was the love of my life sitting across the Yard in his dorm bed, staring at his computer screen?
Checking our inboxes became a nightly routine for my roommate and me, as we stressed over the “vibes” of our profiles and not-so-jokingly discussed what we would do if no one matched with us. Would our egos recover? Would we say we only engaged in Datamatch “for the plot?” Either way, we both were excited about the possibility of finding our special someone.
I woke up on Valentine’s Day, curious and anxious about my matches. Listed below my profile, there were eight possible suitors for my date—sadly not one of them was a country music fan. I perused each boy’s profile, hitting “match” on likely prospects, waiting for them to like me back. It appeared after liking six profiles, only two out of six potential matches found me enticing. I took the initiative and reached out to them first. Let’s call this match, for the sake of anonymity, “Mr. J.”
Mr. J and I agreed that we should meet up. He offered a date suggestion: The Dough Club, 3:00 p.m., Feb. 15. My stomach turned over until our date. With my sunglasses perched on the bridge of my nose, I attempted to appear nonchalant. There he was, Mr. J, standing outside of The Dough Club. Our eyes met, and our date began. (Do not worry, dear readers. I did inform Mr. J that I was doing an article on my search for love for the Independent, and he seemed unbothered by my journalistic pursuits.)
Mr. J and I selected our donuts, and he insisted on paying for my coffee—a true gentleman. After ordering, we decided to take our conversation (and sweets) to the Smith Center, where we sat and shared our fun facts, and in true journalistic fashion, I interviewed him. I asked him the real question: “What were you looking for on Datamatch?” Mr. J replied, “I was looking for love…and food.” He informed me that food was the main reason he was there—a sentence every girl wants to hear.
Then, we talked about dating apps. I revealed that I use them, and learned his experience was quite the opposite. Mr. J explained, “I don’t usually do dating apps, so I thought, ‘Okay, there’s an incentive here.’” Apparently, the appeal of free food was all Mr. J needed to push him into the field of dating—an all too familiar feeling.
He admitted that he didn’t put much effort into this profile, marking a drastic difference from my detailed profile. We discussed dating app controversies, and I inquired about whether or not he was on dating apps. “If [he was] 20 and single, certainly,” was apparently the only reason Mr. J would engage in good old-fashioned Tinder.
Before we veered into our Harvard intros, I asked Mr. J the question that had been lingering in my mind: “Would I be considered your type ‘out in the wild?’” Mr. J gave me the answer I was hoping for: “Yeah, yeah.”
Our date went fairly well, with my constant attempts to make him laugh and hopefully break the ice a bit more, as we both seemed a little uncomfortable and awkward. It was fairly successful, as we giggled over how our love for reading books competed with the lack of time a college student has—our tight schedules overpowering our hobbies. As the date slowly wound down, I pulled out my last stops to make him laugh—poking fun at myself. Unfortunately, after my initial questions, the date only lasted about 20 more minutes before Mr. J told me that he should get going.
Before he left, I had two final questions.
With the fear of self-depreciation looming over my head, I asked the two questions no girl wanted to know at the end of a first date. “What would you rate our compatibility on a scale from one to ten?” When Mr. J gave me a nervous smile and sucked his teeth, I knew I wasn’t going to get the answer I was hoping for. To maintain my journalistic honesty, I prompted him, “Be brutally honest, it’s okay.” Mr. J reluctantly answered, “Maybe like a four or a five.”
It only went downhill from there. Despite the temptation to skip my final question—given the blow to my ego—I knew I had to ask.
With a forced smile, I asked, “Would you be interested in another date? Be completely honest, it’s okay.” Mr. J let me down easily. “No…no,” he said, laughing to break the awkward tension. I laughed too. Maybe Mr. J was right—we aren’t that compatible—but a thirty-minute date on an otherwise quiet Saturday afternoon still brought me joy and eased the seriousness of the second semester. For a half hour, I could ignore my p-sets and worries about life after graduation—all I had to focus on was making the boy sitting beside me laugh. So thank you, Mr. J, for reminding this Hopeless Romantic that life isn’t so serious, and even Harvard students have first-date jitters. We make quite the pair—two first-years, both looking for love and free food.
While I didn’t meet the love of my life on Datamatch, who’s to say he isn’t still out there? Heck, maybe he’s even reading this article, thinking, “This girl seems kinda cool.” I’m still waiting for my fairy tale, but I don’t think I’ll find him on Hinge or Datamatch.
P.S., even Harvard students are looking for their special someone, although they only admit their hopes to their p-sets. Maybe we all should explore our internal romance a little more, and let our emotional economists take the backseat in our love lives. It’s too soon to stop daydreaming, so till next time, Datamatch—maybe that one will wear cowboy boots.
The Hopeless Romantic ’28 hopes to relate to a love song, very soon.