St. Thomas juniors Alex Krajec and Katie Baudler hope to change students’ perceptions of dating by organizing a casual dating experience on campus.

To arrange the experience, Krajec and Baudler paired up 50 male and female volunteers and informed them via email of the pairing.

“Basically we wanted to do something because we want to have a good, healthy dating culture on campus,” Krajec said. He and Baudler believe an emphasis on getting to know people on casual dates can help create such a culture.

Baudler came up with the idea when she went to a women’s group meeting that examined society’s dating culture, how people are often either seriously committed to someone or not going on dates at all. Baudler saw the same pattern in the St. Thomas community and sought out Krajec as someone to help her try to change that.

Krajec was inspired to help her after going to a talk about healthy dating on college campuses.

“On so many college campuses, it’s (dating culture) really, really poor, what with the hookup culture and also with the other extreme of people are choosing not to date,” Krajec said. “They put too much importance on the first date, and so they just have missed opportunities to actually meet other people.”

Baudler and Krajec started work on the experiment in early February and to their surprise, 50 men and women wanted to participate.

“To be honest, I thought this would start small,” Baudler said.

Parker Jones, a sophomore participating in the experience, thinks that whether or not a date is a success, casual dating is still worth a try.

“I would say give it more than one shot, at least two days with two different people, because one day can be bad and another one can be good,” Jones said.

Senior Adam Pilon, who recently went on his casual date, said he enjoyed making a new connection.

“It was really cool to just to get to know someone new that I wouldn’t have otherwise and to just make that human connection,” Pilon said.

Pilon thinks casual dating is something more students should try in order to get themselves out of their comfort zones and typical friend groups. He said he didn’t expect to get into a relationship by participating.

“It’s never bad to meet new people,” Pilon said. “As long as you gave it a shot and you opened yourself up to another person’s viewpoints … you can never lose in that situation. It’s never a wasted experience.”

Senior James Smyth, on the other hand, was originally going to participate in the experiment but later changed his mind. He does not disagree with the idea of casual dating, but he feels that being a senior getting ready to graduate, he doesn’t have the time to meet people due to his busy schedule.

“Had it been a year earlier, perhaps,” Smyth said.

Baudler and Krajec are planning a mixer sometime soon so the participants can all meet. They do not know whether or not they will continue with the experiment, but if more people showed interest, they’re open to the idea.

“For now we are kind of waiting to see what people are in need of, I suppose, creating something out of something that doesn’t have a need isn’t very helpful for anyone,” Baudler said. “I think when we hear some feedback we will know what our next step is.”

Samantha Yang can be reached at yang6578@stthomas.edu.