Charlie is a first-year student in the College of Arts & Sciences.
What is your ideal date’s personality like? Confident, outgoing, funny, KIND, easygoing
Ideal first date activity in three words? Watch a movie or Black Mirror episode, grab ice cream, drive around
Deal Breakers? Hostility
Hobbies/UVa Involvement: Playwriting, volleyball, advocacy (gun control, women's and LGBTQ+ issues)
What makes you a good catch? I can be really funny and silly once you get to know me, and I'm very non-confrontational.
What's your theme song? “Catch my Breath” Kelly Clarkson
Cabell is a first-year student in the College of Arts & Sciences
What is your ideal date's personality like? Funny, nice, will laugh at my jokes, can hold a conversation.
Ideal first date activity in three words: Dinner, movie, stars.
Deal breakers? Bland.
Hobbies/UVa Involvement: I really like writing and listening to music and watching good shows. I'm currently writing a musical and my favorite show is Agents of SHIELD. I'm involved in the Canterbury Episcopal group on grounds and I attend Flux open mic-nights.
What makes you a good catch? (I think) I'm funny, I listen, I enjoy caring about people, I'm nice, and I do my hardest not to hurt people.
What's your theme song? “When He Sees Me” from Waitress the Musical
***
Charlie and Cabell met at 7:00 p.m. and then went to Qdoba for a short dinner
Cabell: I felt excited [about Love Connection], I guess. I haven’t had much luck at U.Va. with dating, so… I don’t know how to describe it. I was excited/nervous. It was a strange situation because there were no expectations, so it could have gone horribly or it could have gone great and either way it would have been fine.
Charlie: So we met at the place where — at the Lawn, at New Cabell Hall. And then we just went to Qdoba because we both had somewhere to be at around 8:30. So we just went there quickly, [and] generally, like, talked for a while. One of my friends actually walked by and said, “Hi.” Then we just walked home. It was very kind of short, it was pretty short.
Cabell: We know some of the same people and we’ve met before so we had each other on Snapchat. And when I was filling out the survey I sent a Snapchat out to some of [my friends] and he was like, “Oh I’ll fill that out.” And then we ended up getting paired together, which is kind of funny.
Charlie: We were sort of friends before … So, basically, my roommate was dating his, like, best friend … I thought it would be kind of weird. But no. He’s just a really … nice person. It was just kind of funny because we had like a strange past. We would just hang out under very odd circumstances. We’d always be like with my friend. … I guess that’s what made me think it would be kind of awkward. I definitely said — I didn’t say to him, but I said it to myself beforehand — that it was going to be a very friendly date … I was very surprised that I got him, because he was actually the one — well, not surprised, but he was actually the one that, like, told me about it. He was like, “Oh I’m signing up for this thing,” and I was like, “Oh yeah, I saw that on Facebook and I was thinking about doing it but maybe not.”
Cabell: I was waiting at Old Cabell, and he Snapchatted me and said he was running late and I was like, “That’s fine.” Then we met up and we started walking to the Corner and we ended up going to Qdoba for dinner, and that was nice. And we sort of just ate and talked and then he had to go do something … We both left at like 8:30 because he had to get back to his dorm … It was fun.
Charlie: It was kind of strange to be matched up with him. I was kind of hoping for someone I didn’t know, but it was really fun and nice.
Cabell: I definitely feel like I know him better now. Because he and I had never hung out one on one, it was always in a group setting. So we definitely talked about stuff that we hadn’t talked about before, like, deeper conversation topics. Nothing insanely deep like existential crises or anything, but, just like more than surface level “oh, hey, how’s it going?” type of stuff.
Charlie: Yeah, so we talked about people we knew in common. And we talked about the next week and what we were doing that weekend … I didn’t really have any plans so we kind of just talked about that [and] talked about the people we knew in common. There are people from home, like, his home, that I knew from U.Va., but I didn’t know that he knew them so we kind of talked about that.
Cabell: We left Qdoba and I live in Brown, so he had to, like, walk that way to get back to his dorm. So, saying that he walked me back to my dorm sounds more romantic than I think it was ... But yeah, he walked me to my dorm and we said bye, and I thought it was awkward, but I’m just an awkward person.
Charlie: We kind of just said goodbye and he walked into the dorm.
Cabell: I feel like, looking back on it, I should have like, hugged him or something at the end. I think it would have made it less awkward, but that’s just me, so…
Charlie: I feel really good about it. It definitely wasn’t a bad experience. Maybe 6.5 [out of 10] is in, like, the bad experience zone. But no. It was very normal [and] fine. I guess the main thing was just that we knew each other. It was just a weird situation beforehand. So I wasn’t necessarily looking forward to it at first and then it ended up being fine.
Cabell: [I’d rate it a] 7.5-8.0 It was pretty fun, like, would hang out again … It’s probably more friendly … We’ve been friends and I don’t really see that changing anytime soon. But, yeah. You never know what the future holds, so I won’t claim anything definite. But most likely we’ll just be friendly.
Charlie: I would do [Love Connection] again for sure. It’s just a fun thing not knowing who you’re going to meet and … I think the idea is a really nice thing. And I enjoyed the process and thought that was really good.
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