Since the beginning of time, humans have been love-struck and love-lorn. From Plato and Aristotle to the great students of Wesleyan University, no one seems to have figured out love. In simultaneous celebration and condemnation of the season of love, we look back at some of our Valentine’s Day issues from the 1990s to the 2020s.

A Long Line of Matchmakers

On Feb. 13, 1990, an article titled “A Look at Local Dating Services,” written by Contributing Writer Jennifer Schonborn ’92, examined Middletown’s matchmaking scene. 

“Dating has become big business in Connecticut,” Schonborn wrote. 

A national “Personal Introduction Service” called Together targeted Wesleyan students and Middletown residents through the mail. In Jan. 1990, Together sent out one-page questionnaires called “Compatibility Evaluation Guides,” which aimed to match compatible people. Together charged its clients a substantial membership fee, but Patty, a Together employee, reported that their service facilitated many long-term relationships and even marriages.

“[Patty] preferred to look at [the service] as an investment,” Schonborn wrote.

Alongside Together, companies like the New England Dating Service and the Jewish Dating Service also used questionnaires to match prospective singles. Harriet Berman, an employee who worked at both companies, assured her female clients that dating services were a safe alternative to single’s bars.

“I know where [your date] lives, what he’s like,” Berman said. “You have no idea who he is when you meet him in a bar.”

Fast forward to the 2000s, when writers on The Argus decided to play God themselves. In an article titled “Blind Date,” published on Feb. 13, 2001, then-Photo Editor Dina Moskowitz ’02 documented The Argus’ attempt at setting people up on dates.

“Whipped cream and awkward moments!” Moskowitz wrote. “To encourage the Valentine’s Day spirit, The Argus sent out six daring people for food, fun, and adventure.”

According to Moskowitz, two dates were set up: Todd Brozman ’03 and Nora Swinburn ’03 met for dinner at Thai Gardens, while Eric Dawe ’02 and Jess Rubin ’03 joined Bajir Canon ’02 and Katie Kelb-Stevins ’03 for a double date at Cornerstone’s.

While it did not seem to work out for Brozman and Swinburn, the double date took an interesting twist. 

“It all started when Jess got some whipped cream on Katie’s nose,” Canon said. “Katie got pissed and threw a whole handful on Jess’ face. Not thinking that they would, Erik and I dared them to lick it off each other. Maybe they did. Maybe they didn’t. They’re wild [women].”

As Moskowitz wrote, all four were placing, licking, and playing with whipped cream on each other soon after. Canon recounted that Dawe almost creamed his pants, while Rubin recalled kissing everyone goodnight.

“Both of the girls were fighting to hook up with me,” Canon said. “I didn’t want to break either of their hearts. They were both dreamy though.”

Dawe reported enjoying the night as well.

“Bajir, Jess, and Katie made me realize that heaven is a place on Earth and the date was an erotic tour-de-force,” Dawe said.

This was not the only time that Wesleyan students have attempted to match-make on campus. Exactly 20 years ago, on Feb. 14, 2003, Roslyn Ross ’04 wrote an article entitled “The Argus’ own Twisted Version of TV’s Reality Game Show.” Ross was credited as “Valentine’s Day Editor.” In a table included with the article, Ross detailed the rules of the experiment.

“The Players: 1 Bachelor; 1 Bachelorette; 5 Girls for the Bachelor; 5 Guys for the Bachelorette,” Ross reported. “The Goal: For the Bachelor and Bachelorette to choose which of their five contestants they want to date. The Argus will supply them with an all-expenses-paid Valentine’s Day. They choose by process of elimination, just like on TV.”

Ross then described each phase of the game, namely “Blind-Folded Blind Dates,” “Checking Out Their Rooms,” “Massages and Dancing,” and “Hanging Out Without Words.” According to Ross, most of the players seemed to enjoy being a part of the game. 

“I’ve never been this effective at meeting beautiful women,” Steve Chasey ’03 said. “And it was fun.”

Other participants, including Stephanie Marcus ’05, Julie Mathis ’03, and David Bryson ’05, also found the game much less awkward than meeting someone the regular way. On the other hand, Amie Kim ’04 and Andy Zelmanowitz ’04 were much more critical.

“Dating is one big game as it is,” Kim said. “We don’t need to make it blatantly so.”

According to “Take One: First Argus Blind Dates Go Out on a Limb,” an article by Claudia Stagoff-Belfort ’21, published on Feb. 13, 2018, The Argus tried to revive its matchmaking tradition that year. In addition to the aforementioned structured events, The Argus published two giant pages of photo columns, featuring “Sexy Singles” and “Cute Couples” each year until 2019. Interestingly—and perhaps intentionally—photos of available singles were often printed in color, while those of couples were black-and-white. At times, The Argus followed up with singles and couples featured the previous year to see how they had been doing.

The rise of the internet has also enabled a myriad of online matchmaking services. A few articles published in the Feb. 14, 2003 issue alluded to a service called WesMatch, which at the time had 2,389 users, according to then-Features Editor Catesby Holmes ’05.

On Feb. 17, 2014, in an article with the headline “I Saw You on Tinder: Swiping Through Valentine’s Day,” then-Features Editor Rebecca Seidel ’15 recounted her first experience using the new app, which was launched in 2012.

“If you don’t know what Tinder is, I will now quote from its website in order to make you feel like a total loser for not knowing: ‘Tinder is how people meet. It’s like real life, but better,’” Seidel wrote.

Feeling liberated by the moments of split-second rejection, Seidel went on a streak swiping left on everyone she saw—until the screen went white and displayed the words, “There’s no one new around you.”

“This was the most profoundly depressing sentence I had read in a long time.” Seidel wrote.

In the 2010s, while Tinder was gaining popularity, two other sites were prominent amongst Wesleyan students, as reported by then-Features Editor Miranda Katz ’15 in “Single and Ready to Cyber-mingle: Students Talk Online Dating,” published on Feb. 11, 2013. They were “WesCam,” created by Jesse Vincent ’98, and “DateMySchool,” a service created by Blazas Alexa and Jean Meyer that targeted college students nationwide. As of 2023, WesCam still exists, and a considerable number of students use it.

In the age of the COVID-19 pandemic, online matchmaking has proven to have greater necessity, according to “When Datamatch Met the Marriage Pact: A Tale of Two Dating Algorithms” by Annika Shiffer-Delegard ’22 and Olivia Luppino ’22, published on Feb. 18, 2021.

“If you were on campus this semester, you spent your Valentine’s Day quarantined in your room,” Shiffer-Delegard and Luppino wrote. “Luckily, two student groups, the Marriage Pact and Datamatch, brought online matchmaking services to campus to stir the romance pot.”

According to the article, the Marriage Pact algorithm was developed in 2017 by students at Stanford University, while Datamatch traces its roots back to 1994, when a team of students at Harvard University hoped their innovation could enable college students to discover their most compatible matches.    

Consensus is: Dating Sucks

On Feb. 14, 2003, Laura Goldblatt ’06, then-Assistant Features Editor, published “Consensus is: dating sucks.” Students interviewed by Goldblatt cited bad candies, troubled origins, and problematic initials as reasons why they hated Valentine’s Day. 

On Feb. 13, 2001, in a similar ethnography-styled review titled “Leila’s Love Corner: A Look at Wesleyan’s Dating Scene,” Leila Estes ’03 also reported on students’ skepticism towards dating on campus.   

“Dating is fucked up, not that I would know,” Jesenia Santana ’03 said in the article.

Rubin, as previously mentioned in “Blind Date,” concurred.

“People at this school have either random hookups or they are ‘married,’” Rubin said in the article.

As Estes noted, students back then were already aware of the small school syndrome that Wesleyan colloquially suffers from.

“Everyone knows everyone, and sooner or later someone will find out [about] your business,” Estes wrote. “With a combination of [a] small school atmosphere and the pursuit of individuality, these ideas do not mix well for the recipe of a dating pool.”

But dating is not just a challenge for students alone. Even Harriet Berman, the employee of two matchmaking services in the 1990s, agreed.

“Dating is hard work,” Berman said.

On Feb. 14, 2003, then-Assistant Features Editor Todd Stone ’05 also highlighted students’ sexual depravity in his article “On WeSex and Love—An Informal Argus Survey.”

“30% of Wes Students are sexually attracted to a professor,” Stone reported.

Perhaps driven by the same sexual depravity, Wesleyan made national news when Brian Brown ’01 decided to make pornography for his independent student film.

In “Termination of Wesporn Arouses Campus Concerns,” published on Feb. 15, 2000, then-News Editor Allison Rovner ’02 reported on Brown’s ambitious project.

“I was thinking about issues of sex and sexuality at Wesleyan University,” Brown said. “I was thinking of what I could do that was fun and informational and could still examine the issues. I could also get people’s input to get a broader scope of the matter.”

He handed out flyers across campus to recruit actors. The eye-catching advertisement read, “get paid to get laid. all welcome. do what you want. show what you want. wesporn. start fucking around.”

Not All Gloomy

However, not everyone’s quest for love has resulted in failure. On Feb. 13, 2009, in an article called “Alumni Couples Recall Their Wes Days,” Sylvie Stein ’12 reported on lasting romances that first budded on the University’s campus.

As Stein wrote, Perry Pockros ’81 and Tricia Neumann ’81 met in an American labor history class in 1979, and a relationship bloomed soon after. Couples like them gave rise to “Wes Marriage,” a widespread term in the early 2000s used to describe relationships between two virtually inseparable students. Popular dating spots included WesWings parking lot, Main Street restaurants, and High Street frat parties, as well as scenic spots on and off campus like the Wadsworth Falls. The relationship-savvy alumni also gave their advice to students looking for love.

“Every Wesleyan student should take [their] date to paint murals and spray graffiti in the West College tunnels!” Pockros said. “And if they’re closed, find a way to get in anyway.” 

“The most important advice is don’t be afraid to embarrass yourself,” Michelle Manseau ’01 said. “In the end, it’s worth it.”

Perhaps the best case in defense of love is the relationship between President Michael S. Roth ’78 and University Professor of Letters Kari Weil. On Feb. 15, 2008, as President Roth began his second of seemingly endless semesters, then-Features Editor Suzanna Hirsch ’10 published an article titled “Love in the President’s Mansion.”

As Hirsch reported, Professor Weil had her doubts when she first met President Roth.

“Sheesh,” Weil thought. “Two kids, two books already…”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, their first date was at a philosophy and literature conference.

“We checked out early to go horseback riding,” the couple said.

Hirsch accompanied the article with a photo of the couple vacationing in Hawaii and commended their loving relationship.

“Almost two decades later, the twosome now clinches the title of cutest couple at Wesleyan,” Hirsch wrote.

While astounded by the sheer creativity of students and faculty in finding love, we also realized how heteronormative Valentine’s Day celebrations have been on campus. Students on the asexual and aromantic spectrum also tended to be marginalized. Furthermore, as Contributing Writer Hannah Rimm ’15 noted in an Feb. 11, 2013 article, being single isn’t the end of the world. 

“This is just a holiday made up by a card company to make money,” Rimm wrote. “Feel free to write a cynical Tumblr post or give the stink eye to happy couples, but remember that Valentine’s Day is just a day. Come Feb. 15, everything will go back to normal.”

If you’re really looking to find someone special on this day, we have chosen six out of the “Top 20 Best Wes Pick-up Lines” rated by students in 2003. 

• Number 1. Your eyes are as blue as the water in my toilet.
• Number 8. Wanna hit a blunt?
• Number 9. Are you from Tennessee, because you’re the only 10 I see.
• Number 15. I don’t like that shirt. Take it off.
• Number 18. You must have a large penis.
• Number 19. Do you like raisins? — How about a date?

Disclaimer: if you do decide to use any of them, we’ll not be liable for the damage caused to any party.

Sida Chu can be reached at schu@wesleyan.edu. 

“From the Argives” is a column that explores The Argus’ archives (Argives) and any interesting, topical, poignant, or comical stories that have been published in the past. Given The Argus’ long history on campus and the ever-shifting viewpoints of its student body, the material, subject matter, and perspectives expressed in the archived article may be insensitive or outdated, and do not reflect the views of any current member of The Argus. If you have any questions about the original article or its publication, please contact Head Archivist Sam Hilton at shilton@wesleyan.edu.