Blind Date Club seeks to revolutionize dating on campus

The Blind Date Club is an organization devoted to creating connection, building community and helping students find their match. Exclusively for students at Utah State University, the club utilizes an app called Computerized Utility for Pairing & Introductory Dating (CUPID) to match up students on blind dates at various on-campus events. 

“There’s three core purposes behind the Blind Date Club,” said Caleb Morgan, president and founder of the club. “The first one is to just increase interaction between club members in the community.”

According to Morgan, every blind date the club sets up is in partnership with another club on campus. A recent club partner was the Big Band Swing Dance Club. Students registered to attend and were paired up with other students. After a match, club representatives at the event and the CUPID app help matches find each other. 

“Once you get matched, we’ll send you a notification that you did, and you just show up to the event,” said Eli Glende, club vice president of events. “Usually me, or if I can’t be there, one of the other guys will be there, just to help everyone find each other. You get a color on your phone so you can show the color. Whoever else has that same color is your match.”

According to Morgan, the club seeks to totally revolutionize the dating culture on campus. As opposed to dating apps, with the Blind Date Club, the pair’s first interaction is face-to-face. 

The registration process is similar to that of a dating app, just with one twist: There is almost a 100% guarantee of a date after a match. 

“We have questions about what kind of person you are. We’ll ask about your religion and your lifestyle, what sexual orientation you are, what you prefer for all those same things, and someone that you would go on a date with,” Glende said. “Then we’ll have more personality-focused questions: Are you a clean, tidy person? Are you not organized? What do you do in your free time? Just stuff like that to kind of get a sense of people’s personalities.”

Morgan said the club offers a much better way to meet people than getting caught up in swiping and social media profiles. The CUPID app provides a way for people’s first interaction to be based purely on their real personality. 

“Your first impression of the person is not a profile picture or a text. It’s meeting them in person. So yeah, it’s a little awkward, but that’s kind of how it should be,” Morgan said. “With social media and stuff, we’re always trying to put our best self forward, but when you actually get into dating and relationships, you’re dating the person for who they are.”

Safety is also a priority for the club. According to Morgan, there have been no incidents so far on the 154 dates the club has facilitated since its creation in September of last year. There is no expectation for someone to even stay on a date if they are uncomfortable. In fact, unless given during the date, there is no way to contact a match after the date is done.  If there were something to happen, the club has measures in place. 

“No one can sign into the app unless they have an A-number, so there’s zero bots, and every single person on the platform is an active, current student at USU,” Morgan said. 

There is also a system in place in case of an individual who is a safety concern. According to Morgan, anyone who is a concern or does not show up to their date without a valid reason is kicked out of the club. Since the club requires an A-number for registration, they can keep repeat offenders from creating a second account. 

“It’s awesome, and it sounds like it’s weird, but you should give it a try,” Glende said. “There’s so many people out there that you’re not going to meet, and I think this is a good way to find people who you’ll vibe with, so you should just give it a shot.”

According to their Instagram, @usublinddateclub, the next event is an Empathy Workshop in partnership with the Stephen R. Covey Leadership Center on Thursday, Nov. 12 at 5 p.m.