On the upper level of Somerville’s Bow Market, 85 people sipped Valentine’s Day cocktails while making small talk. A nervous energy rippled through the room.
Regina Frizzi was among those waiting for Mingle Mayhem, a singles mixer for 26 to 38-year-olds, to begin. The East Boston resident said her “heart rate was through the roof,” even though she’d attended the event before.
The event is billed as a “social experiment disguised as a party.” Rather than typical speed dating, where participants often get stuck talking about the same topics over and over, Mingle Mayhem uses games and conversation starters — all backed by social psychology — to bring people out of their shells.
Instead of asking participants to introduce themselves, the host stood in front of the crowd and told everyone to share a hot take about winter. GBH News agreed to identify her as Audie Olivia, because she is an aerospace engineer by day and matchmaker by night, and avoids using her last name for her matchmaking gig.
After two years of hosting this event, Olivia said she’s learned a strategy of “sideways questioning” that reduces social desirability bias, or “the tendency to give the answer you think you’re supposed to give.”
With a masters in optical engineering and experience working in the sciences, she uses published psychological studies to inform her romantic advice and the structure of her mixers. Her goal is to get people thinking differently when it comes to finding love.
“People’s types are like these snap decisions, and they’re actually really rooted in how we grew up, who our very first crushes were,” she explained. “That isn’t always who’s going to be best for you.”
Mingle Mayhem participants are pushed to ignore their biases through a “type card.” Instructed not to show the card to anybody else, players are challenged to speak to someone who matches the description provided on the back, even if they would not ordinarily approach them.
Matthew Chong from Somerville is an extrovert, for instance, but his type card instructed him to “approach the quiet one in the corner — somebody who has mystery and warmth.”
But once you’ve asked good questions and considered those beyond your type, how do you know if someone is right for you?
Ditch the dating apps
Frizzi said she blames dating apps for making people focus on “instant attraction and looking for the next-best thing, versus meaningful connections and having good conversations.”
Olivia says that’s because they remove key context about a person, bypassing the mere-exposure effect, which builds trust between people over time through sustained contact.
“It tells you everything that that person wants you to know — their height, their religion, all these things at the tip of your finger, that you normally just wouldn’t have access to,” she said.
With hundreds of potential matches at everyone’s fingertips, apps allow people to reject profiles based on surface-level criteria, and swipe to someone else right away.
“When people are exposed to an excess of choice, we become just increasingly more dissatisfied with our decisions,” Olivia said.
Give boring a chance
Olivia said many people pass up potential matches because they don’t feel a “spark” right away. But that initial chemistry can fade, and means little in terms of the long-term strength of a relationship. In fact, sparks can mislead people into picking someone they are incompatible with.
“I talk to a lot of people who haven’t been in a secure relationship before, and they say, ‘Audie, I’m going on all these boring dates … and they’re all duds,’” Olivia laughed. “And there’s no way, because I talk to smart, interesting, available guys all the time. What they’re looking for is that spark. And I say, ‘Give boring a chance!’”
Avoid traditional dates
After finding someone who sparks your interest, what you do together matters. For Olivia, this means avoiding traditional dates like drinks or coffee in favor of new activities.
“If you are more active, go axe throwing. See how they respond to competition,” she suggested. “That’s going to give you so much more information than asking what they do on their day job.”
This idea is backed by self-expansion theory, which argues that novel situations increase individual confidence while creating stronger, faster bonds between people.
Mingle Mayhem puts the theory into practice. Guests at a recent event played three structured games, punctuated by unstructured chatting time. While not axe throwing, the games had little to do with dating. The opening activity was a “Rock, paper, scissors” tournament that engaged the entire room.
Though Olivia says she doesn’t measure success by the number of couples that form after her events, she offered anecdotes of the people who don’t return — like Victoria DiTomasso and Miguel Rubiero, who met at a June 2025 mixer and have been together since.
The couple recommended that for anyone hesitant to try a singles event, it helps not to take it too seriously.
“You can’t control if somebody here is going to be someone you connect with or not,” said Rubiero, a Somerville resident. “But you can show up, and you can show up with a good attitude and an intention of having a good time.”
