With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, the Class of 2026 was eager to attend Pali’s annual Senior Dating Game hosted by the Associated Student Body (ASB) class. After just returning to the original campus, the bare canvas is the perfect blank slate for newfound romance. A varied group of senior students participated and attended the event on Feb. 11, in the newly reopened big gym.
ASB invited the Class of 2026 to nominate their fellow peers to be contestants on the game as “bachelors” and “bachelorettes.” Hosted by Senior Class President Sofia Romero and ASB Secretary Zoe Bolour, the game followed the similar style of the television show, “The Dating Game,” and the Jubilee youtube channel, creating quite an entertaining lunch period.
The game consisted of two rounds.
Round One featured three male bachelors (Ocean Silkman, Ethan Haghnazarzadeh and Max Dorband) anonymously revealed to one female bachelorette, Clara Benner, who eliminated one bachelor after each round of questioning.
Round Two instead focused on four female bachelorettes (Grace Behar, Melia Ross, Alice Amorim and Ella Engel) and one male bachelor, Justin Reinman.
“I was honored to be nominated by the grade and super excited to just participate,” Silkman said. “I think all of us have been looking forward to senior events like the dating game for a while now.”
Overall, the event turned out to be a success. Participants’ answers to questions often led to the crowd erupting in laughter or screams. Questions like “what is your ideal first date?” and “does height matter?” lead to some particularly entertaining answers.
Silkman added that he “honestly wished questions got even more controversial.”
Round 2 of the game concluded with Justin Reinman picking “bachelorette 3,” also known as Grace Behar, as his match.
“I was really happy to be included and honestly shocked by some of the responses,” Behar said. “It was very fun to hear everyone’s answers and I was hoping to be paired with Justin… though I think it might be platonic love.”
Bolour explained ASB’s thought process behind putting together this event.
“We do dating games for most major holidays but because we couldn’t do one for Halloween we are doing two this semester,” Bolour said. “The senior dating game is something all of us in ASB have been looking forward to organizing since we’ve observed it being done by the upperclassmen every year and it was really special to finally be the ones putting it together.”
The game ended with two fun and unexpected duos: Reinman and Behar, along with Dorband and Benner. Whether these pairings go beyond the gym floor remains to be seen. Stay tuned.
Look forward to ASB’s next Senior Dating Game, St. Patrick’s Day edition. Maybe we will find love in this hopeless place?
