Though some single Pirates may have spent Valentine’s Day alone this year, a few Seton Hall students are hoping they can bring a different type of dating experience to campus -- this time based around a computer algorithm.
LoveBoat (@loveboat.shu), a new Instagram-based matchmaking service, introduced a survey that aims to help Seton Hall students find their perfect match.
With the ongoing pandemic, some students have found that it is more difficult to create the long-lasting bonds that are fundamental to the college experience, something the LoveBoat creators are hoping they can resolve.
“Meeting people on campus and out in town is such a big aspect of the college experience, which so many people are missing nowadays,” a LoveBoat co-creator, who requested to be referred to as Match Mermaid, said. “So, we combined our passion for social media, coding and a need for a better dating experience to create LoveBoat for the SHU students.”
The LoveBoat creators said they paired participating students with their best potential matches using an original algorithm. The other LoveBoat co-creator, who requested to be called Love Captain, said that unlike dating apps such as Bumble and Tinder, LoveBoat matches students based on how compatible they are with each other.
“Our survey collects information about a person’s astrology, politics, Greek Life affiliation and location,” Love Captain said. “Each candidate gets a score on how correlated their interests are, and then everyone is matched to those who maximize that score.”
The creators of LoveBoat said they received a total of 669 student responses before the survey closed on Feb. 13. Love Captain said that having projected 250 submissions, the team’s expectations were thoroughly exceeded.
The LoveBoat dropped the survey just before Valentine’s Day.
“I thought it was a good strategy,” Lydia Soto, a freshman diplomacy major, said. “There’s always a lot of single people on Valentine’s Day, and even if it’s just a short-term thing, I feel like everyone’s open to the idea of spending it with someone.”
While some students said they were pleased with the results of the survey, others said they were not as impressed with the outcome.
“I like the intention and the theoretical objectives of it,” Ryan Woodhams, a junior business major, said. “I don’t think their execution is as streamlined as some people would like.”
After LoveBoat launched, several other transit-themed matchmaking services similar to the account also launched. One such account,called LoveTrain (@shu_lovetrain), claims that its survey boasts a more in-depth and reliable matchmaking system than LoveBoat’s.
“Obviously, big things like political stance and religion are important to consider, but something as simple as sharing a favorite artist or both wanting to go skydiving one day are fun things to discover in a relationship,” LoveTrain’s creator, a senior male business major, said. “That’s the sentiment we tried to embody in our survey by including a bunch of small, seemingly miscellaneous things that will be fun to discover when you meet your match.”
Despite the rising competition, the LoveBoat creators remain confident in their future as a matchmaking service.
“We’re thankful for everyone who supported and participated in the survey,” Match Mermaid said. “We want everyone to be on the lookout for more to come, with mutual matches this time, and we’re delighted to see the impact we were able to make with the SHU community.”
Peyton Hruska can be reached at peyton.hruska@student.shu.edu.
