It’s freakin’ Valentine’s Day ““
again.
What’s with this soulless, sadistic holiday that makes
everyone who’s with someone feel pressured to spend a lot of
money and everyone who’s alone feel even more painfully
alone? You’re bitter, lonely, and really sick of those
disgusting heart candies with sappy sayings. Besides, you
wouldn’t even know where you’d go even if you did find
love in this god-forsaken world.
Cue the Daily Bruin.
The first two UCLA students to venture on The Bruin’s
blind date feature “Art to Heart,” in which students go
to an arts and entertainment event to review the show and possibly
find romance, were second-year undeclared student Will Froehlich
and first-year ancient near East civilizations student Cai
Clayman.
While Clayman describes herself as a lover of foreign films and
Indian food and dreams of one day living on the East Coast,
Froehlich calls himself a laid-back and really relaxed kind of
guy.
The two first met on a sunny Sunday afternoon in front of one of
the UCLA dorms. They were on their way to a place neither of them
had ever been: the J. Paul Getty Museum.
“It was a pretty nerve-wracking experience at first,
especially because you don’t know how you’re supposed
to act around the person,” Froehlich said.
The two, at first showing signs of anxiousness, fidgeting and
wringing their hands together, settled down once reaching the Getty
where they visited the new exhibit “Bill Viola: The
Passions.”
The exhibit displays the power and complexity of human emotions
through a series of 20 video works, which examine facial
expressions and body movement in a modern media.
While hailed by many art critics as groundbreaking and
exhilarating, the Daily Bruin wanted to see how two average
students would react to the edgy display.
“The exhibit was definitely a change from the art
I’m used to seeing,” said Clayman. “It’s
the type of exhibit that’s appealing to a person who’s
interested in modern and contemporary art, but it doesn’t
affect me as much as ancient art does.”
Froehlich thought the exhibit was a little too strange for his
taste. He said he didn’t really get what was going on and the
work just seemed like slow motion of people making funny faces
instead of being really artistic.
Though the exhibit didn’t match the couple’s tastes,
they still sat down for a candle-lit dinner to see if they were a
match for each other.
The two sat eating their Whole Foods provisions and engaging in
your run-of-the-mill getting-to-know-you conversation. While the
intimate setting of a secluded table overlooking the Los Angeles
Basin at sunset may have been the perfect atmosphere for romantic
fireworks, it seems the flames between these two fizzled before
they sparked.
“It was a bit awkward at times when I tried to discuss
cultural events and he didn’t seem to have the same passion
about that as he did about sports,” said Clayman.
“He’s a nice guy, but we’re very different people
““ he likes movies like “˜Shanghai Knights’ and I
like movies like “˜Memento.’ It immediately struck me
that I was Manhattan and he was the Bronx.”
While Froehlich doesn’t think the two will ever go out
again, he still appreciated trying out something new and getting to
meet another student he might not normally meet.
“The date overall was an interesting experience because
you had a great setting and a loose, relaxed environment which made
it comfortable,” said Froehlich. “Cai was definitely an
intelligent girl ““ even though we had a lot of different
tastes ““ she made me feel at ease.”
Clayman, on the other hand, was less positive about the dating
experience. She said the setting was great, but she thought she and
Will were just too incompatible to make a match. But she said it
was still better than she had expected.
“You always hear about these horrid blind dates where the
guy has one eye or is missing a leg,” Clayman said.
“This, being my first ““ and probably only ““ blind
date, was definitely a relief because he had all of his
limbs.”
But while Clayman was put off by not finding Mr. Right on the
first go, Froehlich is keeping his mind and options open.
“I’d definitely be willing to go on another blind
date because it’s a fun experience overall ““ you get to
just click and meet random girls,” Froehlich said.
One of the few things the aborted couple did agree on was
disliking the critically adored Bill Viola exhibit. The score for
now: Daily Bruin Love Connection ““ Zero, High Art ““
Zero.