n the Wednesday Kit Ketlle emailed me, I left my Wigglesworth Hall dorm dressed handsomely.

My black dress shirt was freshly dry-cleaned; its collar popped over my cobalt-blue suit jacket. The matching pants were lint-free and cinched at the waist with my shiniest belt. My black dress shoes were scuffed, but I liked the clicking sound they made on the Massachusetts Avenue pavement. If my white Adidas socks exposed rather more ankle than I might have hoped, then it was no great fault of my own.

I was dressed for a date of sorts with an older gentleman, his wife, and eight other eager Harvard undergraduates. Our destination was a fine Italian restaurant in Boston’s North End, at the end of which, if I was quite lucky, I’d go home with all 10. The Institute of Politics Fellows and Study Group teams do not often splurge, but that night, they were spoiling us.

Ambling down John F. Kennedy Street, I flipped open my phone and spied the email. “Hey Wyatt and Angelica, you two should catch up. Or meet for the first time. Meet each other at Bartley’s this Saturday noon. You can ignore this email, but what’s the fun in that?”

Little did I know, all around Harvard’s campus that afternoon, students were receiving near-identical emails from the mysterious Kit Ketlle. Disproportionately often, those I spoke to had been set up with classmates. Some were matched with clubmates. Others were paired with complete strangers. Across grade levels, perhaps 50 people I spoke with — and everyone they knew — had received an email. Some received multiple, including Angelica, my two-timing bride-to-be.

In some alternate universe, I went to Mr. Bartley’s Burger Cottage. I would have arrived a few minutes before noon. I would have dressed nicely, though with rather less polish than I brought to my only loosely formal IOP dinner. I would not have ignored the email, because really, where is the fun in that?

But I did not show up at Bartley’s at noon, just as my roommate did not show up at Tatte at 10 a.m., and the girl upstairs did not show up at Saloniki at 7 p.m. In fact, not a single person I chatted with actually went on their arranged date.

Do my friends and I lack courage? Perhaps. Are we chronically single? Almost certainly. A campus with a purportedly “non-existent dating scene” had suddenly been supplied with low-stakes dates courtesy of a crockery cupid nobody knew — and no one took them up. Unrequited emails abound.

Like everyone else, I wanted to know who Kit Ketlle was. But honestly, I wanted more. I wanted to know why they’d emailed every person I knew. And, I wanted to know how they felt about being so dramatically unsuccessful.

So, I set about finding Kit Ketlle.

Monday, 4/20, 10:00 p.m.

After days of gathering data, I feel prepared to begin my investigation in earnest. Where else to start but Sidechat, that endless repository of clarity and sincerity? My fingers fly across the surface of my phone with a broad inquiry: “Hi does anyone know anything about Kit Kettle?” Straddling credibility and mystique, I signed off as “a Crimson writer.”

My post earns 0 karma, but one comment: “Yes it’s lampoon.”

I rack my brain. Could they be referring to the Harvard Lampoon, a semi-secret Sorrento Square social organization that used to occasionally publish a so-called humor magazine? The prospect is implausible as it is unsatisfying. The Lampoon purportedly strives for humor, but Kit Ketlle seemed earnest in her quest for student connection. Surely The Lampoon would have been funnier? Moreover, I’m not prepared to believe that Harvard’s lack of romantic risk-taking is the joke. Surely any humor would depend on at least a few students actually going on their dates.

I decide on a bluff. Adopting what I can only assume is a Lampoon-like tone, I post a follow-up: “I yearn to know who kit ketle is,” and sign off as “The Lampoon.”

When I check an hour later, this sleight of hand has earned me four karma, but no leads.

Tuesday, 4/21, 9:45 a.m.

I do what I ought to have done the night before: I look up Kit Ketlle.

Predictably, Google recommends that I must have attempted to search “Kit Kettle”, and I’m given the exciting opportunity to purchase a Kelly Kettle® Kit. Although I am assured that Kelly Kettle herself would be pleased to help me choose between the stainless steel or the aluminum, something tells me this isn’t what I’m looking for.

When I inform Google that I’m looking for Kit Ketlle rather than Kit Kettle, results remain unfruitful. Instagram offers a variety of admittedly beautiful porcelain kettles in which the hashtag “kettle” was mispelled, as well as posts related to the 12 tons of KitKats stolen from an Italian truck last month. Nowhere is there any person, or company, that might reasonably be considered Harvard’s Kit Ketlle.

Tuesday, 4/21, 4:00 p.m.

I’m bored in my afternoon film class and so naturally I return to Kit Ketlle. How is it pronounced, anyway? At lunch, everyone said “Ketlle” like it rhymed with metal, but I try not to make assumptions: what if there’s a Spanish pronunciation on the double ‘l’? What if that’s important?

I try it out, muttering ‘kit ket-ye’ a couple times under my breath until my neighbor looks at me like I have lost my damn mind and I stop.

Tuesday, 4/21, 10:00 p.m.

Despairing, I screw up my face and text the Class of 2029 WhatsApp group chat to ask for information. It seems likely that one of its several hundred students would know something. But no. Like almost every other message sent to that graveyard of engagement, mine receives no response — just a Face with Tears of Joy® emoji reaction, which is profoundly unhelpful.

Tuesday, 4/21, 11:50 p.m.

It occurs to me that I never actually responded to Ketlle’s initial email.

I had heard of unsuccessful attempts to do this already, but it seems an oversight not to attempt direct contact myself. I shoot off a quick reply, and am briefly heartened when the message doesn’t bounce. Just as I think that, I receive the message: “Address not found.” Just to make sure, I send a separate message, copying the address exactly, but no, it bounces too.

Wednesday, 8:45 a.m.

Having applied myself overnight, I wake up with a novel approach to the question. Whoever is behind Kit Ketlle has clearly disguised any attempt to determine their identity, but might the name itself be a clue?

I type the nine letters into an anagram unscrambler and hit enter. The longest words are six letters: “kettle”, “kittle”, and,apparently, “tekkie.” None ring a bell. I repeat the process with an eye toward phrases. Unless the phrase is “kettle ilk”, it seems unlikely. Attempts in non-English languages prove similarly fruitless.

Wednesday, 12:45 p.m.

I return to the systematic approach. If Kit Ketlle is genuine, they might be a ploy from a pre-existing dating site. I reach out to every dating platform active at Harvard I can find: Circle, DataMatch, Harvard Dating, and Quickmeets. I leave for section hopeful that one will respond with an answer, or at least a lead.

Wednesday, 2:45 p.m.

The end — or what I think is the end — is both unsatisfying and unfunny. I open my email to a flurry of messages from Kit Ketlle: one sent directly to me, others forwarded from friends. I open mine and read:

“Dearest Wyatt,

“Who is dearest to you? Well, it’s official now. Their email is [email protected]. Shoot them a message. You might actually know them. Can’t judge you for your choices.

“P.S. those Lampoon rumors? Please…”

The forwarded emails are identical. People have been set up with themselves.

After a dedicated investigation, it seems to have just been a Lampoon prank, and I almost wish I had not known. I had wanted a sincere conversation with the people behind Kit Ketlle, and that now seems highly unlikely.

Like a good journalist, though, I email the Lampoon to ask if they want to chat. They do not respond.

Case closed.

Saturday, 4/25, 5:30 p.m.

Or so I think.

I’ve already written a lackluster conclusion to this article when my editor texts a breakthrough: a Lampoon informant told her that the organization was not involved in the emails, though they would be eager to take public credit. (The Lampoon did not respond to a subsequent request for comment.)

Having reconciled myself to the idea that Kit Ketlle was a joke, I’m both unnerved and excited. If the email wasn’t sent by the Lampoon, who could have done it ? And more importantly, why? The second email seemed to be in jest — and very well may have been. But if not The Lampoon, what was the point of it all?

***

I did not find Kit Ketlle.

None of the current dating apps took credit. No student I spoke with knew who the sender might be. I am left little more than I started with: a mysterious email linked to a website that doesn’t exist setting up students with others — or themselves — for two Wednesdays consecutively.

Where does that leave us? The simple answer is that nothing has changed. But on a campus where the number of dating startups rival the number of people I know in committed relationships, I wonder if Kit Ketlle — intentionally or not — revealed something more endemic about Harvard students, myself included.

Kit Ketlle filled — perhaps overfilled — the absence of meaningful connection that we feel deeply yet are unwilling to act upon. Whether we are too busy, too controlling, too afraid, too skeptical, too tired, or simply uninterested, every person I spoke with spurned an opportunity for connection in favor of jokes at Kit Ketlle’s expense.

And in its audacity and scale, it’s certainly funny. But still, I wonder whether Kit Ketlle’s joke might, ultimately, be on us: our dearest person is ourselves — and we’re best contacted by email anyway.

P.S. And what of “bull(dog)s?” Perhaps Kit Ketlle suggests we take our romantic prowess — or lack thereof — to the animal sphere, or (God forbid), Yale. That, though, really would be too far.

—Magazine writer Wyatt J. Meyer can be reached at [email protected].