Singled Out returned to Poway High on Valentine’s Day, this time with more inclusivity. This year, instead of making it a game to find love, the goal was to find friendship compatibility among Poway seniors. The two “singles” were Nathan Fernandez and Katie Carpenter. 

“My favorite part about being one of the singles was having the stage to myself and getting to hear everyone’s answers,” Fernandez said. During the event the “singles” were sitting on the stage with their backs turned to the contestants so they couldn’t see who was answering the questions. 

Prior to the event, 30 contestants and the singles filled out a sheet of “This or That” questions such as “ Summer or Winter?” Then, during the event the singles were asked the questions from the sheet, and if a contestant’s answer didn’t match, they were eliminated. This process was repeated until it was narrowed down to five contestants. 

The remaining five contestants answered free response questions such as “Is a hot dog a sandwich?” anonymously. 

“I loved all the energy the emcee’s and the crowd brought! It was such a fun and unique experience that you don’t usually get to have at school,” Carpenter said.

In the end, the singles picked who they liked best from the blind free response questions. Fernandez ended up picking Mariah Wingfield and Carpenter ended up picking Tyler Burmeister, “I am happy that I won, I really liked getting to answer the free response questions and hearing my friends in the audience laugh when I said a hot dog is a sandwich,” Burmeister said.