![<p><strong>Joe</strong></p><p><em>Year:</em> First</p><p><em>Major:</em> Undecided</p><p><em>U.Va. Involvement: </em>Brown, First Year Council, Flux</p><p><em>Hometown:</em> Culpeper, VA </p><p><em>Ideal Date:</em> Dark hair, medium length hair, either the same height or a little shorter than me.</p><p><em>Ideal Date Personality:</em> Sunny, optimistic, the kind [of person] who’s always smiling, spontaneous.</p><p><em>Ideal Date Activity: </em>Walking around Grounds with a picnic on the Lawn.</p><p><em>Describe a typical weekend:</em> Drinking tea, reading, enjoying free time with friends.</p><p><em>Hobbies: </em>Writing, reading, socializing, going on adventures, exploring Charlottesville.</p><p><em>What makes you a good catch?</em> Optimistic, cares a lot (to a fault sometimes), generous.</p><p><em>What makes you a less-than-perfect catch?</em> I’ve been told before that I “have no chill.” </p><p><em>What is your spirit animal?</em> Prairie dog</p><p><em>What’s your favorite pick-up line?</em> Are you British? Because you’re just my cup of tea.</p><p><em>Describe yourself in one sentence:</em> The human embodiment of a pumpkin.</p>](https://snworksceo.imgix.net/cav/bf93f581-5b1e-4e79-acc6-c4a7115dc226.sized-1000x1000.jpg?w=1000)
Joe and Shweta met at 1 p.m. at Clemons Library and walked around Grounds.
Joe: [I signed up for Love Connection] because [my friends and I] read Kurt’s old Love Connections and decided it’d be fun for a couple of Brownies to sign up too.
Shweta: My good friend Sean did [Love Connection] a couple weeks ago, so I was like let’s see what happens. I was kind of bored [so I signed up].
Joe: I’d never been on a date before, and I was excited to see what it was like.
Shweta: I was really surprised [when I was chosen] because I had just signed up three days before. When I got the text [about the date], I was actually with another guy so that was kind of funny.
Joe: I thought [the date would] be awkward and weird. I was wondering how it’d be to not know someone and have a really in-depth conversation.
Shweta: I’ve never been on a date with a stranger before; it was always someone I knew. We had a tiny exchange beforehand at the “Rocky Horror Picture Show,” so that was interesting. I had a hunch that this was him.
Joe: [When she walked up] I was hanging my legs off the terrace beside Clemons. It was a really beautiful day, so I was taking some pictures. Shweta came up behind me and asked if I was the guy she was meeting.
Shweta: He was sitting outside of Clemons, facing away. I stood there for a while and then walked up to him. We then walked over to Wilson to get onto the roof to take pictures, but it was too hard to climb up.
Joe: We went around Grounds, taking pictures and talking. She was a much better photographer than me.
Shweta: He brought a really nice digital camera and we walked around and took pictures. We drew pictures of vegetables on the board of a room in New Cabell. We talked in a Garden and then got coffee.
Joe: She was funny, nervous and had kind eyes. Her mind worked really fast and it was fun to try to keep up.
Shweta: I realized it was the same guy from “Rocky Horror.” He wasn’t really what I was expecting, [but] I thought he seemed fine. I thought he was pretty honest and attentive. He seemed very thoughtful.
Joe: She suggested we do a sort of question-ping-pong so no one would dominate the conversation. It worked really well, and we kept things interesting by asking good questions. Nothing was off limits.
Shweta: We asked things we wouldn’t normally talk about on a first date and hung out for three and a half hours.
Joe: I think we were both up for a new experience, whatever that meant. We both wanted to be honest and natural.
Shweta: We both really like to snuggle. We didn’t snuggle on the date, though, because we didn’t want things to escalate too quickly.
Joe: Near the beginning, she mentioned there was a view on top of Wilson that was to die for, so we went over to the bike racks outside to climb on top. She got scared and didn’t want to, so she ended up standing with one foot on either black ring for a good 20 minutes and I thought it was a really ice-breaking situation.
Shweta: We laughed a normal amount, so it wasn’t like we were super serious. At one point, I asked him something that makes him very vulnerable. We connected emotionally about our passion for mental health issues.
Joe: She was fantastic and made conversation so easy. We’d both been nervous for nothing.
Shweta: I definitely [got] just more of a friend vibe. I think we’re pals now.
Joe: I’d love to hang out with her again. At the end, we decided that it wasn’t romantic, but it was such a great time to just spend three and a half hours with someone you’d never have met otherwise.
Shweta: It seems unlikely that [we will] hang out again, but perhaps I would hang out with him again as a friend.
Joe: [At the end of the date] I paid for us to drink coffee, which she couldn’t drink because she isn’t eating sugar and it was sweet of her to humor me, but that was it.
Shweta: We were at Starbucks and both had coffee, then he said he had to go. He gave me a hug and then I left to go talk to my other friend.
Joe: It was my first date, so [I would rate it a] 10. I’d say it’d be hard to top her; she was really a great person.
Shweta: On a romantic level, I’d rate the date a 0, but overall, [I would rate it a] 6.5 or 7. The extra points would be a romantic attraction or spark which wasn’t there. I think we got along very well.
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