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Bryan and Gabby

Did both their first dates become first loves?

<p>Gabby</p><p><em>Year: </em>Third  </p><p><em>Major:</em> English</p><p><em>U.Va. involvement: </em>Brown College, Cavalier Marching Band, Virginia Women’s Chorus</p><p><em>Hometown: </em>Fredericksburg, Va.</p><p><em>Ideal date personality:</em> They have to be kind. Not just a “nice guy” but someone who genuinely enjoys making people happy. I’m also a sucker for someone who can make me laugh.</p><p><em>Ideal date activity:</em> Something lowkey, maybe just getting food on the Corner and eating it on the lawn under a shady tree. I’m not against something exciting though.</p><p><em>Deal breakers?</em> Smoking, drug use, excessive drinking.</p><p><em>Hobbies: </em>I enjoy reading if I ever have time outside of reading for my classes, or just doing something with friends.</p><p><em>What makes you a good catch?</em> I’m a pretty fun-loving person! &hellip; Also, if you like random singing at random times that’s usually on key, I’m your gal.</p><p><em>What makes you a less-than-perfect catch?</em> I can get overwhelmed pretty easily. I’m involved in a lot of stuff and I often forget how much time I can actually commit to each thing.</p><p><em>What is your spirit animal? </em>A chocolate bunny (I love chocolate)</p><p><em>What's your favorite pick-up line?</em> I feel like being upfront usually works better, but I always laugh at “I lost my number, can I have yours?”</p><p><em>Describe yourself in one sentence:</em>&nbsp;I'm strange and I like it.</p>

Gabby

Year: Third

Major: English

U.Va. involvement: Brown College, Cavalier Marching Band, Virginia Women’s Chorus

Hometown: Fredericksburg, Va.

Ideal date personality: They have to be kind. Not just a “nice guy” but someone who genuinely enjoys making people happy. I’m also a sucker for someone who can make me laugh.

Ideal date activity: Something lowkey, maybe just getting food on the Corner and eating it on the lawn under a shady tree. I’m not against something exciting though.

Deal breakers? Smoking, drug use, excessive drinking.

Hobbies: I enjoy reading if I ever have time outside of reading for my classes, or just doing something with friends.

What makes you a good catch? I’m a pretty fun-loving person! … Also, if you like random singing at random times that’s usually on key, I’m your gal.

What makes you a less-than-perfect catch? I can get overwhelmed pretty easily. I’m involved in a lot of stuff and I often forget how much time I can actually commit to each thing.

What is your spirit animal? A chocolate bunny (I love chocolate)

What's your favorite pick-up line? I feel like being upfront usually works better, but I always laugh at “I lost my number, can I have yours?”

Describe yourself in one sentence: I'm strange and I like it.

Bryan and Gabby met on Friday at 7 p.m. and went to Arch's on the Corner.

Bryan: I submitted my application near the end of the Spring 2016 semester because my apartment mate said I didn't take enough risks and should do something out of my comfort zone. He also said I had nothing to lose.

Gabby: I live in Brown College and in the past there have been other residents who have gotten on Love Connection so I thought I would give it a shot. Plus, all of my friends were asking me to because they thought it would be funny.

Bryan: [When finding out my application got chosen…] What?! My application survived?! Is this a prank? Shoot, how do I schedule a date without knowing anything about the other party?

Gabby: I was really freaked out but also excited. I never thought that I would have gotten chosen so quickly, so it really surprised me when I got the text.

Bryan: I've never been on a blind date before. I was expecting to have to talk about myself in a way that sounded interesting, so I prepared answers for a few questions like: "What is your favorite movie?" Interestingly enough, the question did come up, but I still verbally tripped over it despite my ‘preparation.’

Gabby: I have never been on a blind date before so I tried my best not to have any expectations — although of course it's hard not to have any. If anything, I tried to figure out all the bad things that could happen so that if good things happened they would be pleasantly surprising.

Bryan: I saw two groups of people on the Rotunda steps and panicked a bit inside. There was no getting around having to ask one of the two groups if one of their members was Gabby. I decided to ask the group that hadn't just sat down on the steps (seemed like they'd been there longer), and my choice was right.

Gabby: There were a lot of people walking around and already sitting there so I was wondering if five minutes was too early or if he was already there too. I had just gotten out of a banquet so I was wearing a dress and heels and I hope that wasn't too dressed up.

Bryan: Oh shoot, how long was she waiting on the Rotunda steps? I was late by one minute because I wasn't sure what the conventions were for arriving early, exactly on time [or] late were. She seems really friendly and does not seem to be a first year. She's there with company — was I supposed to bring company?

Gabby: I thought that he seems like a very nice person and also a lot more normal than I was expecting since I was only thinking of that outcome.

Bryan: We ended up going to Arch's for dessert, even though I technically hadn't had dinner, but that was totally my bad because I didn't think things through enough when scheduling.

Gabby: Because it was at 7 p.m. we had both already eaten some dinner so I suggested that we go to Arch’s for frozen yogurt.

Bryan: I picked 7 p.m. [to meet] because I was scared that 5 p.m. was too early for dinner, not sure why I didn't opt for 6 p.m. Funnily enough, she had already eaten dinner because I'd chosen such a late time. I'd also eaten two sandwiches an hour and a half earlier because I didn't know what we were going to eat, if at all. I also didn't want to show up to the date and have my stomach growling be the opening "line" of the date.

Gabby: He didn't really have a plan for the fact that we had both eaten so I just came up with something off the top of my head in terms of dessert.

Bryan: The conversation was pretty balanced. We took turns asking questions and answering them — it wasn't like an interview. We were both a bit awkward because we didn't know what to say to each other at a few moments. We pointed it out, though, and that made the rest of the conversation easier.

Gabby: It was pretty awkward I'm not going to lie. I think that just comes down to the fact that we didn't know if we had anything in common so there was nothing to keep the conversation going until we found something which took a while. It ended up being a lot of questions like, "Do you like movies?" "What kind of music do you listen to?" — that kind of stuff. I did feel like I had to come up with a lot of the questions myself but I think that just comes down to the fact that neither of us have been on dates before and I think I was better at improvisation.

Bryan: We both enjoy movies — even if they're not necessarily the same ones. We both don't really care for Country or Screamo music. Neither of us had been on dates before. We both started out college being scared of college math courses.

Gabby: I am an English major and he is majoring in linguistics so those are pretty similar. We talked a lot about that and classes in general. Unfortunately we haven't seen a lot of the same movies or read the same books so there wasn't too much culturally to talk about.

Bryan: There was the moment when we both learned that this date was the first each of us had ever been on. There was a lull in the conversation, and I didn't know what to say besides that I had never been on a date before and had no idea what I was doing or what was good to ask. Then she said it was the same case for her.

Gabby: He held the door open for me and paid for the froyo, which I was surprised at in a nice way. I was fully prepared to pay for myself.

Bryan: I think it was more of a friend vibe. Our conversation did basically follow the flow and structure of typical conversations between two people striking up a friendship.

Gabby: It was definitely more friendly. I think we were both a little bit too awkward [to] make it a romantic vibe but it was still a nice conversation. I enjoyed listening to him talk about computer science things since I'm not familiar with those.

Bryan: I could see myself hanging out with Gabby again as a friend. We got along well and there were some laughs shared.

Gabby: I probably would not go out again. If anything, this experience made me realize I'm probably not made for blind [dating]. I like having some kind of information beforehand to think about what we can talk about and without that, it made things a little bit slow moving.

Bryan: We walked back to Brown where she lives so she could make movie night on time, told each other our last names too and said bye.

Gabby: I had an event to get to at 8:30 p.m. so [we] left around 8:15 p.m. He had already paid like I said before and he walked me back to Brown which was nice of him and then we just parted ways.

Bryan: I'm honestly not an expert at rating anything, let alone dates, but I think I would give the date a 6.5 because we were both inexperienced, had a little issue with scheduling and the date did not seem to indicate that we would have a romantic relationship. I rated it more on the positive side because I think going on a date was a really good experience to have in general and the experience with Gabby was enjoyable.

Gabby: I would probably [rate] this a 6 out of 10. It was a more positive experience than negative but there was no romantic connotation and … the question and answer portion was a little awkward.

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