While Marriage Pact and Date Drop may not be foolproof plans for finding a lifelong partner, Northwestern students have made valuable connections over the student matchmaking platforms.
Some students have found romantic matches, as the platforms’ names suggest, while others have made new friends.
Date Drop founder and Stanford University graduate Henry Weng said he has heard both romantic and platonic success stories, and he finds connections that never would have happened without Date Drop especially meaningful.
“That’s a really beautiful thing,” Weng said. “People use Date Drop for a reason, and I think it’s because we want to feel understood and known.”
Weinberg first-year Bella Hsieh met her Date Drop match for boba and a study date. Her friends later joined the pair at the library after seeing she was there.
After studying together, Hsieh’s match invited Hsieh and her friends to a Vietnamese Student Organization spring roll making activity.
“We have a group chat now,” Hsieh said. “I would say that we are friends.”
Others have developed a romantic spark through the platforms. Communication first-year Lucas Li has been going out with his Date Drop match for a couple of weeks.
The first texts between the pair revealed a lucky coincidence: They live in the same dorm. It was not just their proximity to each other that made the connection work, though, Li said.
“We have a lot in common, but not too much in common,” Li said. “Both of us enjoy a lot of banter and not being super serious, so it’s easier for us to talk.”
For Medill first-year Uma Morris, Date Drop represents the start of something new. Morris said she is excited and hopeful leading up to her second date with her match.
However, because students choose answers that reflect how they perceive themselves, Morris said the Date Drop system does not take human bias into account and can skew results.
In her view, there is more to compatibility than similar characteristics or beliefs.
“It has to do with becoming friends with someone or having a shared experience, which you can’t determine through a form,” Morris said.
Roommates and Weinberg first-years Jiya Patel and Uma Yaga said they agree with the notion that compatibility may develop with time. After coincidentally matching through Marriage Pact last quarter, they said they have become even closer.
Yaga said the Marriage Pact algorithm picks up on the intangibles. For example, she said although she has a habit of feeling overwhelmed when juggling “a million things at once,” Patel helps center her emotions, which is just one of the reasons they are so compatible as friends.
“Now we always make jokes,” Yaga said. “We’re like, ‘I’ll find you an econ major just like me, and you find me a pre-med that’s just like you.’ We have the blueprint.”
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Related Stories:
— New matchmaking service Date Drop releases on campus
— For Valentine’s Day, NU students reflect on Marriage Pact experience
