First Dates

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

By: Erin Massie

When Senior Penn State student Aaryonna Fontes watched her peer get hit by a car, she had no idea what saving him would grow in to.

Brooklyn native Yandell Denis never expected a friend request to turn into an ongoing friendship.

Mike Morris would’ve never guessed a movie date would lead to something epic.

First dates come in all forms, but in this generation first dates come about in the craziest ways, and the outcomes are even crazier.

According to a study written by Daniel Hayes for the Statistics Brain Institute shows,  that only 2% of men and 9% of women have ever formed a relationship with someone they met at a bar.

In today’s society there are so many platforms where you can “meet” people.

To name a few apps there’s Tinder, Grindr, Bubble, and match.com. On top of that, people have also started using social media like Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat.

On the opposite end there are still people out there that take the old fashioned route and just meet in person, or connect a friend to a friend and start dating but those interactions are almost unheard of.

 First Impression Not the Best

Aaryonna Fontes, 22, and her boyfriend Devon Geib, 21 embrace lovingly. photo taken by:@_etdphotography on Instagram

Penn State student Aaryonna Fontes is one of those people, she met her current boyfriend in a face to face interaction.

Prior to their first “date”, Fontes met junior Devon Geib before, and in the few times she’d spoken to him in passing, he rubbed her the wrong way.

“When I first met him I thought he was a total asshole, and felt that way for like 2 years. I would see him around and walk in the opposite direction,” said Fontes.

For awhile this was how she felt until she saw him on her way to class.

“One day I was headed somewhere and I saw him hanging with some of our mutual friends. I stopped over and we had an actual conversation that lasted longer than the usual three or so minutes. When our friends left I expected him to get up and leave too but he stayed and we continued to talk for like an hour,” Fontes said.

In the generation of phone geniuses and social media savvy young adults, after an interaction like that, a follow on some kind of social media platform usually comes next.

Shortly after their talk, Geib asked for her Snapchat, occasionally commenting on how pretty she looked in a photo or video.

After a few weeks of this he mustered up the courage to ask for her number.

“A few weeks later, I invited him to a fashion show I was in, and he actually came, and sat front row,” Fontes said.

For Fontes, it was insanely interesting to see someone like him, Mr. “heart throb” popular guy on campus, be that into her.

Aaryonna Fontes, 22, and boyfriend Devon Geib, 21, stare into each others eyes smiling. Processed with VSCO with fs4 preset

 Driving Out of Control

Following the show she extended her invite to a party she was going to, and the party got out of hand.

Fights broke out, chaos was everywhere and at the height of it all she witnessed Gieb get hit by a car.

“I immediately ran over after the car drove off, and helped move him out of the street before he got hit again. It was crazy, a few of his friends and I just talked to him to keep him calm while we waited for the ambulance to get there. I went to the hospital with him and it was probably one of the funniest experiences of my life for the simple fact that he was more mad about his shirt being cut off, than actually getting hit by a car,” Fontes said.

After the dramatic event they were inseparable, spending a lot of their free time getting to know each other.

Bringing it full circle to present day and a year later they’re still going strong.

New Yorker, Yandell Denis had a different experience.

Scrolling through instagram one day, he came across a girl he found pretty attractive, and like young adults do in today’s dating world, he sent her a direct message.

Starting up a nice conversation he eventually slides the ask in there, seeing when she’s free to possibly meet up and hang out.

“We went out to eat at some nice restaurant in the city and it was really good, finishing up she asked if I wanted to go and do something after we left, but it was late and I told her I had work in the morning,” said Denis.

She didn’t like this at all and started fighting with him. The argument somehow led to her asking him to get out of her car mid ride.

They went back and forth until he just obliged, “ I just got out, I was over it and didn’t care to entertain the situation any longer than I already had. I ended up calling an Uber home,” Denis said.

Shortly after she texted him apologizing and to this day they still meet up from time to time.

Mike Morris, Point Park student, had one of those “only me” kind of first date experiences.

At his best friend’s girlfriend’s party, Morris met a girl he thought she was cute and asked her for her number.

After a few texts full of 20 questions, and back and forth they agree on a mall date.

The gist of it was short and sweet, they walked around, ate some food, talked and by the time that all was over it was time to leave.

“As we were walking to the car, she jumped on a pretty guy and started kissing me,” said Morris.

These kinds of outcomes are rare but epic, “I ended up taking her virginity in the back of my car in the mall parking lot,” Morris said.

Similar to this first date experience, Morris had another epic exchange from Tinder.

On his birthday last year he was on Tinder scrolling and messaged a girl asking if she wanted to come over and hangout.

She had different plans, “She pulled up outside of my house and told me to hop in her car. She drove me to a Marriott, and took me up to a room. When she opened the door there were like 10 balloons and candles lit everywhere. In the corner sitting on a table was a cake that said “happy birthday baby daddy”,” Morris said.

This is a great exhibit A for how epic first dates can get.

Morris never spoke to her again.

  Madness and Mex

Staying on this thread of epic first dates, Mackenzie Mangum had her taste of dating app first dates.

Scrolling on Tinder, Mangum started up a conversation with a guy she matched with.

After talking for a bit he started playing around with the idea of a date.

They went back and forth bouncing around places to meet up that was equal distance from them, and eventually decided on the Mad Mex in Greentree.

“I got there first and so I went in sat down and ordered an appetizer. I waited around for about 30 minutes, and he still hadn’t showed up. Eventually he texted me asking why I wasn’t there yet, and I responded asking what he meant, and he responded by saying I don’t know what you mean I’m here, I’m at Applebees which was down the street,” said Mangum.

Without making a big deal of the miscommunication, Mangum just closed her tab and headed to Applebees.

Once she got there she found him sitting at a table by himself eating an appetizer.

“He seemed confused, so I sat down and went through our messages for him , and he looks at me and says, ‘Oh man I was supposed to meet with someone else’ so I just was like ohhhhh okay I’ll just finish this food and go,” said Mangum.

Following that awkward interaction she went home and deleted her tinder account, but curiosity got the best of her and she eventually re-downloaded the app.

“I got back on tinder and matched with the same guy again. I didn’t realize who he was until he messaged me asking to hangout. I asked him did he mean me or somebody else, and he just says “No”,” said Mangum.

She found the entire situation hilarious, “At least I have a good sense of humor,” said Mangum.

Unexpected Love Story

For as long as she could remember, Gracey Evans never wanted to use any kind of dating app.

This changed the moment she turned 21.

On Oct. 17, Evans turned 21 and she decided to go for it, “I got a tinder account on October 19th and immediately just started scrolling, after about five minutes, Ryan’s profile popped up,” Evans said.

Ryan Yonko, Evans current boyfriend, shortly after swiped right on her profile and they matched.

A selfie of Gracey and Ryan. The couple met on Tinder and started dating two days later. They will have been dating for six months as of April 21, 2018.

They hit it off and over Tinder they swapped numbers and Snapchat accounts.

That night they struck up a conversation and decided to meet up for lunch the next day at Mario’s on the Southside.

Initially neither one of them expected the date to really go past lunch, but it went so well they decided to continue the date and go to the Carnegie Science Center.

“On our walk back to the Point Park shuttle after our date, we both decided to delete our tinder accounts,” Evans said.

A few days later on Oct. 21, Evans, Yonko and a few of her friends went out to celebrate her birthday, Evans and Yonko made the relationship official that night.

“A lot of people said we rushed into the relationship,” said Evans.

Saturday April 21 marks their six month anniversary.

The couple poses for a photo as if Ryan is helping Gracey off the bus during the World of Wheels in Pittsburgh in February 2018.

No Means No

While some dates fizzle out, some people push first dates into more than they should be.

Nigeria Wallace had a first date turn into a nightmare, when her date wouldn’t take no as an answer.

A server at Olive Garden, it was just another regular shift for Wallace when a family of six sat in her section.

“They were celebrating one of the son’s birthdays, and it was like any other table I’d waited on except for the fact that one of the sons kept flirting with me,” Wallace said.

She went through their meal like she normally would, and as she closed up their meal bringing to go boxes and their checks, The son who was flirting pulled Wallace aside and asked for her number.

“He asked me if I wanted to go and get drinks after I got off of work, and I gladly accepted and told him I would text him once I got off,” Wallace said.

Once she got home she checked in with him to make sure they were still on for drinks, he said yes and picked her up shortly after.

Their first date went over so well that they continued to stay in contact afterward.

“We started talking every day, and each day I started to notice him use words that were more passionate. He started calling me names like “bae”, or would call me “his girl”. During our first date I made it clear to him that I enjoyed his company but wasn’t ready for a relationship so I was confused to see him moving so fast,” said Wallace.

As the weeks went by, Wallace drew back and eventually stopped answering his calls. Despite this he would come into her job and specifically ask to sit in her section, and calling her work phone asking to speak with her.

This behavior continued for about two or three weeks until he finally got the point and left her alone.

In this case it was love at first sight for him, and a never-ending nightmare for her.

Erin Massie, a recent journalism graduate of Point Park University aspires to work for a publishing house, or to engage in television reporting. She can be reached at emichellemassie@gmail.com.