SERENDIPITY—OR MAYBE CRADLE ROBBING—IN KIRKLAND
THE COUGAR AND HER CATCH
Geraldine M. Jowett ’14
House: Mather
Concentration: Human Developmental and Regenerative Biology
Tell us about yourself: There’s nothing appropriate for print.
Patrick P. Doyle ’15
House: Holworthy
Concentration: Pending
Spends his afternoons: Playing spikeball in the Yard, comping the Crimson Key Society and the Harvard Financial Analysts Club, growing into a man
THE DATE WAS MATCHED
Geraldine: He looked vaguely familiar when I met him. So, we met in Kirkland dhall and we sat down, and it became very clearly obvious that the reason that his name sounded familiar was because he was my top Datamatch.
Patrick: I was just excited about the adventure.
Geraldine: And I had been stalking him on Facebook that day because I was writing recommendations. I’m in Crimson Key, and he’s in the second round [of the comp], and I was stalking literally every single person. So I had been looking at his Facebook this afternoon. He was very excited.
Patrick: She also knows some of my friends. It seemed like another coincidence among the many.
Geraldine: I was really happy to get to know him. I had a really good time.
Patrick: It wasn’t really awkward; I feel like we’re both personable people so the conversation flowed easily.
Geraldine: So, you set me up with a freshman. He was kind of cute in an, “I’m 21, he’s 18” way.
Patrick: We talked about some of our similarities, like how she’s 21 and I’m 18.
NO STRINGS ATTACHED
Geraldine: It was nice because I actually kind of enjoyed the blind date experience because, you know, there’s no pressure. It’s fun, no pretense of anything. It was really just like meeting someone in the dhall, it was just good fun. B+
Patrick: If there’s another date, maybe there will be a little spark. A great time, a great dinner, meeting a new person who’s nice and a person who I’d like to know further. A
JEWISH GEOGRAPHY IN QUINCY
THE STAR-CROSSED LOVERS
Leah Reis-Dennis ’13
House: Eliot
Concentration: History and Literature
She’s Harvard’s Ella Fitzgerald: Reis-Dennis sings for the Nostalgics, a soul and Motown band
Joshua Lipson ’14
House: Winthrop
Concentration: Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations
Intellectual pursuits: International politics, philosophy, and whiskey; Lipson is also a Crimson editorial writer.
LET’S GET IT ON
Leah: I was feeling a little bit apprehensive, just because I’ve been on blind dates before, and normally at least I’ve gotten a chance to stalk them online. But, I was excited because it’s fun to meet someone new regardless of whether you have a romantic connection or not.
Joshua: I’ve never been on a blind date before, but, I didn’t feel terribly nervous. I’ve been so busy today that any emotional energy I could expend on being nervous has been totally sapped.
Leah: It actually wasn’t awkward. I would say that we’re both pretty personable people; he was certainly lively and we had plenty to talk about.
Joshua: Conversation did flow, I thought. For some reason, every conversation I have with everyone tends to lead back to the same things: disillusionment about how conventional everyone is, Jewish stuff, and basically the things that we’re respectively studying.
Leah: We actually both happen to be Jewish and we talked a lot about Jewish stuff, interestingly. He studies Hebrew and Arabic so we talked about Israel and Jewish things on campus, and it was fun.
Joshua: I also thought it was really awesome that she was a jazz singer. She said she played at the Winthrop Housing Day Stein club last year and I remember being blown away by the vocals.
YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT LOVE IS
Leah: We had a great time but I don’t think it’s going to lead to a future, fruitful romance. It was a cordial yet platonic departure. B+
Joshua: It was a joy talking to her. It felt like I was just meeting someone for dinner. I don’t think there was any romantic subtext. But that’s fine; I like meeting new people. Meeting a new, interesting, genuinely likeable person rates as better than most experiences I could have here. B
