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Flyers have been popping up around Ithaca College campus for Cayuga Love, a new student-run in-person matchmaking service. The service, created by seniors Jaiden Moreno and Shelby Riley-Cherubin, will rely on human intuition to match singles with their ideal dates.
Generation Z is no stranger to dating apps. Hinge and Tinder run rampant on college campuses nationwide. But according to a 2025 survey done by Hims, 77% of people ages 18-29 actually met their partner in person. Gen Z is moving away from online dating and looking toward in-person events and interactions to meet future partners. With the Cayuga Love matchmaking service, IC is following in that direction.
Cayuga Love was created in Fall 2026 by Riley-Cherubin and Moreno. Any student from IC is able to sign up for the free service by direct messaging “love” to Cayuga Love’s Instagram page. From there, they are sent an intake form and then are scheduled to meet with Riley-Cherubin and Moreno for an initial interview.
“It’s the same as your friend being like, ‘hey, there’s this person. I think you’d be great if you guys met,’” Moreno said. “We’re like that, but we’re everyone’s friends.”
The intake form asks for basic information like age, major and some hobbies. The form also asks potential clients to specify what they are looking to get out of their Cayuga Love experience. After filling out the form and having an initial in-person meeting with Moreno and Riley-Cherubin, they will then work together to match up their clients based on interests, personality and dating preferences.
Senior Jasmine Foster said she decided to sign up for the service to meet new people while being off-campus this semester. She said she would not normally do something like this, but since Riley-Cherubin is her friend, she decided to give it a try.
“The little pitch that they gave me was that they were trying to get people away from the dating apps and get back to face-to-face, which I really like because though dating apps work for some people, they won’t work for all people,” Foster said.
Foster herself said she has never used dating apps. However, a 2023 survey from the Pew Research Center found that younger generations ages 18-29 are the largest percentage of users of online dating platforms, specifically Tinder, Hinge and Bumble. However, 46% of Americans in general said their overall experience with online dating had been negative.
“I just feel like a lot of it has turned into either hookup culture or you go on a dating app and you just kind of swipe around, and nothing really comes of it,” Riley-Cherubin said.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Gen Z was forced inside, abstaining from seeing anyone outside of their home. Studies show that this era stunted the generation’s social development. Gen Z got more comfortable online and used to interacting through screens while losing their ability to interact socially in person.
Dating apps can lead to superficial relationships, but they also create conditions for catfishing and raise concerns over safety. Meeting someone online can carry significant risk of deception, physical danger or harassment and unwanted interactions.
Moreno said what he and Riley-Cherubin have to offer that dating apps cannot is human intuition. When the matchmakers meet with their clients, they said they make it a point to not only get an idea of their interests and what their type is, but also to gauge their personality. Moreno said he tends to pick up on the little things that make a person unique.
Senior Tess Achtermann was in the middle of setting up for a resident assistant event when she got a call from Moreno and Riley-Cherubin telling her that her match had been made. It was a blind date, so neither person knew who they would be meeting. After grabbing coffee, Achtermann and her match strolled through Ithaca’s Apple Harvest Festival.
“First dates usually are awkward, [but] there was definitely good chemistry,” Achtermann said. “I could understand why they made the match. Definitely things in common, and it filled most of my boxes.”
Achtermann and her match were the first match made by Moreno and Riley-Cherubin, acting as their guinea pig. She said she and Moreno have been friends since their first year, and he has always played matchmaker just in their friend group.
Moreno and Riley-Cherubin are both RAs at IC. As part of their RA duties, they have to do one-on-ones where they meet with their residents at the beginning of the semester and ask them how they are doing. Since these sessions often get personal, Moreno and Riley-Cherubin said they have the skills to make people they have never met comfortable and be able to get to know them.
“You’re in someone’s bedroom, and it’s just like, ‘How are the dining halls?’” Moreno said. “It’s awkward, and you have to pick up skills to make it not awkward and … break the ice quickly and find ways to connect with different people as quickly as possible.”
Dating apps rely on algorithms. Matches are made through the information that someone chooses to share on their profile and based on their interactions with other profiles. An algorithm might be able to see that two people like the same music artist or are within 20 miles of one another, but it will not be able to tell someone if the other person will like their humor or if they will be in conversation for hours on the first date.
Achtermann said that meeting people can be scary, even more so in today’s society. The stakes are high when any awkward interaction could leave a digital footprint. Sometimes it can just be easier to take the easy way and present perfectly curated versions of ourselves.
“I think our mistakes live on a lot longer now than they used to, and I think people are just really scared to put themselves out there,” Achtermann said. “It’s easy to get most of your needs filled in your room. You can scroll on social media and feel connected. You can swipe on a dating app and feel connected. And it’s all such an illusion.”
Before social media and dating apps, meeting someone without physically meeting them was rare. Now, social media and dating apps give us that option. Riley-Cherubin said that she believes that meeting in person and feeling out chemistry first is how dating should go. Moreno said he feels that people are just more scared to talk to other people.
Riley-Cherubin said she wants this service to take some of the pressure off of dating and bring back dating culture. Cayuga Love is just in its beginning stage. As more matches are made, Moreno and Riley-Cherubin’s cupid skills will be tested and the campus will gauge the effectiveness. So far, Cayuga Love has had 43 people sign up for the service and made two successful matches.
“I would like to see us help start a few relationships,” Moreno said. “This is kind of an elaborate scheme. So that would be great if we pull it off.”
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Cayuga Love ditches the algorithm and relies on human connection – The Ithacan
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