We paired up Communication sophomore Jenna Van Duyne and McCormick sophomore Andy Nwaelele for Organic Chemistry based on their mutual interest in volunteering and desire to meet someone who doesn’t take themselves too seriously. The Current sent them to Cheesie’s for their blind date. Here’s how it went:
Jenna Van Duyne: We went to Cheesie’s! I had been there already but he hadn’t. Actually, my friends had dragged me there the night before. I told him that and he suggested we go someplace else, but I wanted him to experience Cheesie’s for the first time
Andy Nwaelele: I thought the date was good by and large, there were certainly some points of silence, but we talked for like a little over an hour. I suppose I was slightly nervous going into it, but the nerves quickly went out of the window.
Van Duyne: It went pretty well. It wasn’t fantastic or terrible, but I still had a solidly good time. Since it was both our first times on a blind date, I think we felt a little bit of mutual awkwardness. He offered to pay for my lunch but I opposed, so the guy taking our order goes, “I’m confused.” So Andy had to inform him that we were on a blind date, which this guy thought was really funny. Andy did end up paying for my lunch, which I thought was very nice of him.
Nwaelele: We talked about a number of things, typical stuff I guess — sports, high school, academic tracks, student groups, siblings, movies, music, TV, relationships slightly. Nothing incredibly deep.
Van Duyne: We talked about all sorts of things. Northwestern life, classes, dorm life, sports, music and movies. We talked about why we had both signed up for this…I thought it was cool that we were both sophomores, so we could relate to each other in that aspect.
Nwaelele: She was cool, she was pretty low-key, well-spoken, at ease. She was very cheerful too and seemed like she wanted to be there, which was good.
Van Duyne: I wish I had a better adjective, but Andy was a really nice guy. I learned a lot of things about him, like how he played basketball, his hometown, what he does on campus and other things like that – basic “get-to-know-you” things.
Nwaelele: We had similar interests in movies, music somewhat, both used to play basketball. Both of us also liked the idea of blind dates, (they) seemed like a fun concept.
Van Duyne: It was funny, when we talked about music we were naming our favorite artists and neither one of us had even heard of the others. However, when we moved on to movies we discovered that we both keep our ticket stubs from old movies and he kept his in his wallet so we went through them and talked about if we had seen it and how we liked it. I thought that was the most interesting part of the date.
Nwaelele: Would I be interested in going on another date with her? I would, I would.
Van Duyne: I would definitely be up to getting to know him better. Blind dates are one of those risks that really has more positive possible outcome than negative ones. As my mom likes to remind me, her and my dad met on a blind date!
If you would like to participate in Organic Chemistry and go on a blind date, email [email protected].
