Students exchanged laughter and phone numbers on Friday night as potential partners ran through speed dating rounds hosted by the Longhorn Singles group.

The “Get Unsingle” event featured a date auction and icebreakers to spark conversations that could turn new faces into potential partners for Valentine’s Day. The event was held at Gregory Gym and was open to all students looking to find a match or meet a new friend. 

Undeclared sophomore Jessica Heighway said the speed dating event was a focused way to approach potential suitors. 

“Everyone knows they’re here for the same reason,” Heighway said. “When you’re in the club, you don’t know if they’re single or if they’re not.”

Founded in the fall of 2016, Longhorn Singles is a Facebook group aimed at providing a dating expressway for students, with many of the nearly 800 members posting short profiles on the page in hopes of attracting someone with shared interests. The “Get Unsingle” night marked the organization’s first offline event and was an opportunity to meet face-to-face amid card games and pool.

Biochemistry freshman Son Le said the event was particularly helpful because it distinguished itself as an alternative to online dating apps.

“By meeting them first-hand, you can really see their true personality,” Le said. “It’s very nice to see them in person first.”

Economics freshman Jason Lyu founded the group and stressed the importance of creating such a social avenue for students.

“When you go to the residential halls you’ll find a lot of people who just stay in their dorms,” Lyu said. “I founded the club to give a better chance for people to meet with somebody who’s also in that kind of situation.”

Computer engineering junior Yousef Abdelrazzaq said he believed the event helped foster connections.

“There are probably people of many majors that wouldn’t have gotten the opportunity to get to know each other without such an event,” Abdelrazzaq said.

Lyu found that for many organizations, it can often be unclear who in the group would be interested in starting a relationship. This asymmetric information could make finding partners, even in an organization of people with the same interests, daunting. 

“If you join another organization, you’ll find interests first and then single people,” Lyu said. “By joining this group, you can find single people first and then find people with the same interests as you.”