LEVERETT HOUSE SENIOR PLAYS MATCHMAKER

Need a date for your winter formal?

Don't call the Singles Line. Thanks to a new dating service, lovesick Leverett residents can find soulmates at a day's notice, and the service's founder hopes it will soon be available for the entire senior class.

Leverett resident Josephine C. Navarro '93 is offering a free and confidential dating service to match Leverett House members and their admirers.

Students were asked to make a list of up ten residents they would like to "get to know better." Navarro said she will make the matches by today.

Students will be paired together only by mutual consent, since they both must indicate an interest in the other person on their list.

A flyer notified residents of the new house service and promised participants that "great precautions will be taken" in maintaining secrecy and that any student desiring "an actual oath of secrecy" could contact Navarro.

But the flyer said that though the matchmaking comes just a week before the winter formal, it would also act as an "informational" service. Navarro said the service would be worthwhile "even if people just end up meeting people."

Navarro said she created the service because she had set up couples in the past and was often asked jokingly by House Committee members to expand her matchmaking to a service.

And although the results of the service aren't out yet, Navarro said she has already spoken to Class Marshal Maitri Chowdhury '93 about the possibility of raising enough funds to computerize the operation and make it available to the entire senior class.

Leverett residents said yesterday they were eagerly awaiting the results of their matching attempts and hoping they would culminate in new romance inside the house.

Leverett House Committee Co-Chair Eric W. Zitzewitz '93 said "a lot of people are doing it" and that he "would be really psyched if five matches came out of it."

"Sometimes Harvard students need all the help they can get," said Joanna Dreifus '94, crediting the shortcomings of the Harvard dating scene for the popularity of the service.

Dreifus also said she feared students were "not taking it too seriously" because of the brevity of the process.

But one cocky student claimed he doesn't need the help of a dating service.

"If I put down 10 names, I will get ten responses because I am the hottest guy in Leverett," said Mark S. Balabanian '94, who appeared to be serious.