Shota and Lakshmi met in front of Edgar Allan Poe’s room at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday night and went to Roots on the Corner.
Lakshmi: I signed up for Love Connection because I was just bored and reading articles and thought it would be funny if I signed up and ended up doing it. I did it awhile ago and kind of forgot I had signed up.
Shota: I went on a date through Love Connection before, and the first one was very pleasant. I subscribe to the idea that it’s never too late to make a new best friend. And you know I thought, why not? I enjoy doing something every day that I will remember.
Lakshmi: I hadn’t been on a blind date before. I thought it would be more like a friendly encounter than a date-like encounter, so I was just prepared for getting to know someone.
Shota: Every day is different. Every person is different. The interaction between two people is like a chemical reaction — once you interact, you come out differently. I did have in mind that I didn’t want to do the same date. But expectations-wise, I think you just set it as friends and then see where it goes from there … I did clean my room.
Lakshmi: So I got there like two minutes early, and my date got there right on time.
Shota: I was like, “Hey, are you here for Cav Daily?” and she was like, “Yeah.” I said, “What do you want to do?” and she said, “It’s already late, do you want to go to Roots?”
Lakshmi: We grabbed Roots, and he also bought me bubble tea. We were going to sit on the steps of the Rotunda, but since it had rained, we sat in his Lawn room.
Shota: I think the conversation was pretty balanced. We never really got personal with our questions or conversation, it was a little bit beyond small talk but nothing really deep.
Lakshmi: We both have had a lot of experiences to share at U.Va., so we were kind of talking about everything we’ve done and looking into the future because we both are going to go work in the same area, so we were talking about our respective workplaces and what not.
Shota: We’re both engineering. We’re both working in Northern Virginia next year. We have a lot of mutual friends.
Lakshmi: He was really interested in credit card benefits, which I thought was funny. He pulled out his laptop and looked our cards up and compared our point systems and what not. He also pulled up my Facebook profile in front of me so that was interesting. From the things I’ve heard of Shota, I wasn’t really surprised.
Shota: Yeah, we talked about credit cards for a little bit — pretty nerdy.
Lakshmi: I think it was more of a friend vibe. We were just really getting to know each other, so it wasn’t really any sort of immediate chemistry, but definitely a friendship that I would keep in touch with in the future.
Shota: It was definitely a friend vibe.
Lakshmi: As a friend, I could see us going out again. Since we will be in the same area and know a lot of the same people, we will probably end up in the same gatherings. We’ve already been to the same parties, so I’ll probably see him around.
Shota: She’s definitely pleasant, and I enjoyed talking to her. I think we wouldn’t hang out actively like get lunch again, but we would definitely talk if we saw each other at a party or social gathering.
Lakshmi: For the Roots, we paid for ourselves, but he did buy me bubble tea.
Shota: As a date, it was a 6, but as getting to know someone, it was an 8.
Lakshmi: I would give it a 7!
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