“Blind dates: you know where two people get together and ruin each other’s evening”. Clarissa Darling, played by Melissa Joan Hart in Clarissa Explains It All, hit the nail on the head when she delivered this line. The gamble and many failures of blind dates have fed pop culture with plenty of food for humor over the profiles that don’t match the people, awkward pauses, lonely people waiting at coffee shops long past the time the date was supposed to appear, and well-meaning friends wildly misjudging the compatibility of the two people in question.
Sigma Tau Delta sought to provide a foolproof dating experience for the bibliophiles wandering this campus. The chance to spend some quality time with a good book. The sorority asked for wrapped books to be donated with a short note providing a genre, summary, and recommendation from the giver of the book. The event took place during the week of Valentine’s day this year. The givers had the option to “date” any of the other books on display in the main hallway of Dukes.
One of the participants, Isabella (Bel) Mancuso, joined in the event saying, “I didn’t really have any expectations going into it.” Mancuso related that it made sense to host the event around Valentine’s day given the cold weather and the lonely people that may not have a date for the night. It provided a quirky, fun way to spend the evening, much better than a blind date with a person who may or may not be pleasant, plus if the date wasn’t going well with the book, the reader could just put that book down and pick up another, no hurt feelings, no rejecting a person, and no expensive dinner or movie to pay for.