Wearing nothing but his Nikes and his Packers cap, Anthony Fittizzi '97 met his current girlfriend while celebrating initiations in the Dial-Elm-Cannon taproom last year. Though his girlfriend was surprised to find Fittizzi reveling in the buff a full month after the Nude Olympics, they hit it off. The two now look back fondly on their chance meeting, which is no stranger than many first encounters at Princeton, where offbeat romance is the norm and blind dates abound.
Some students have elevated the art of blind dating to a science. One such foray, the Computer-Dating Dance, is sponsored by the Inter-College Council, and matches first- and second-year men and women with partners who share their interests and world-views. To be paired, one has only to fill out a multiple-choice survey that covers everything from one's style in romance to one's taste in coffee. Recently, the event has even offered homosexual matching for those who indicate that sexual preference (though the system was threatened when one sophomore altered sexual-preference marks on completed forms, causing humiliation and spoiling matches).
Though the dance is popular-70 to 80 percent of students participate-it's not surprising that few couples end up permanently paired. Participants receive the names of their "dream dates" after a week or two of computer analysis, and what follows, more often than not, is a living nightmare. For example, after one computer-science major's match failed, he suggested that "the computer must have malfunctioned." But others have found solace in the silicone element: when one freshman found her date disastrous, she dragged him to the computer cluster and entertained herself online instead. Others have tried to circumvent the computer and have used the event to land a sought-after catch. Two years ago, a couple of women plotted to set up their roommate with a guy she had a crush on. So they intercepted his computer form and copied his responses. Their plan worked, for the two were paired, but the romance failed when neither the woman nor her date had the courage to call the other or to attend the dance.
For those averse to digital hookups, the residential colleges also sponsor a blind-dating event in the spring. For this dance, instead of computers doing the pairing, roommates do, conferring with friends to find a "compatible" mate. (The event, appropriately, is named "Screw Your Roommate.") The matchmakers also plan a surprise meeting. Yusi Wang '95 arranged for her roommate, Noor O'Neill '96, to meet her date in Fine Tower. On the fateful night, she walked a blindfolded O'Neill up several flights of stairs to a candlelight dinner with her match. "It was very nice, though we couldn't get to the top of the tower as they had planned for us," recalled O'Neill. Another couple was told they were to meet as Superman and Lois Lane. When "Superman" saw his "Lois" arrive, he donned a cape and blue tights, then leapt forward, professing his love. "He seemed sincere," says Lois, "but after that night I never saw him again."
The popularity of the event has inspired spinoffs. Forbes College, for example, staged a successful send-up of the "Newlywed Game" last year. Students answered questions about the dating habits of their roommates, trying to predict their actual responses. In a startling display of intimacy (or clever guessing), most roommates' answers were right on target. A typical exchange: Q: "How many dates has your roommate had this fall?" A: "Seven, or eight, depending on how you count." And this fall at the Center for Jewish Life, students sponsored a dating-game spoof-though laughs were had, no matches were reported.
For those under Cupid's spell but too bashful for the blind-dating scene, Valentine's Day offers more traditional methods for wooing a sweetheart. The Flower Agency delivers Carnations, Glee Club members sing "Val-o-Grams," and resident advisers groups hold special study breaks. But for one group frustrated by blind-date failures, Valentine's Day offered a chance to vent pent-up emotions. In 1994, a group of disgruntled juniors decided to rebel. Inspired by the superficial romance around them and spurred on by the lack of romance in their lives, Eunice Lee '95 and several friends started celebrating "Anti-Valentine's Day." After gorging themselves on black candy and plastering their walls with torn-up paper hearts, the students sent dozens of black cards across campus that quoted Shakespeare's Sonnet 130: ". . . If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head . . . in some perfumes there is more delight than in the breath / That from my mistress reeks . . ."
When its sponsors graduated, Anti-Valentine's Day fizzled as quickly as did the romance of computer dates. And even with some creative twists, dating at Princeton seems no more popular than it ever was, according to Roshawn Blunt '96. "Most people here prefer casual friendships to dating," she says. "This place is just not oriented toward romance."
Jeremy Caplan is a contributing editor of the Nassau Weekly.