Blind Date
 | This chapter is exclusively available to members of Bittersweet Club International. |
| Blind Date | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Published | July 1, 2016 |
| Page count | 11 |
| Major characters | Matt, Rachel, Jessica |
| Minor characters | Tess, Roger |
| Locations | Roseville High School |
| Chapter navigation | |
| ← Love Letters | Augustus, You Jerk #2 → |
| Read in the BCI Members’ Library | |
Blind Date is a canon Bittersweet Club International side story set in Rachel’s freshman year, back when Matt was the friendless new kid and Tess still ruled the hallways. Rachel takes one look at the shy new giant and falls head over heels.
Partial synopsis
Matt is a new student at Roseville High School and towers over the students around him. In a crowded hallway, he accidentally bumps Tess’s arm. She rounds on him and knocks his notebook from his hands. Her boyfriend Roger joins in the jeering while Matt picks it up.[1][2] A moment later, Rachel appears and grabs his arm with a delighted cry of “MARTIN”. She leads him away using a fake excuse about math homework.[2] After Matt corrects her, he remembers her as “Roseville’s best science student”, and she melts.[3]
Rachel is smitten immediately.[4] While Jessica eats lunch outside, Rachel calls the new student the perfect shy “gentle giant” and tells Jessica what she wants from him in bluntly sexual terms.[5] Jessica has heard this sort of announcement before. She keeps eating her sandwich and answers flatly.[4]
The story then skips across several months as Rachel befriends Matt and introduces him to Jessica and Jordan.[6] Rachel’s crush survives the entire climb. What Matt himself wants is a murkier question, and he is running out of room to avoid it...
Character dynamics
- Matt and Rachel: By the main comic’s present, the two vacation together and have made plans to attend college together.[7] In this story, Rachel pulls Matt away from Tess before she knows his name.[2] She later vows not to let Tess and Roger bully him.[5]
- Tess and Roger: When Tess berates Matt and knocks down his notebook, Roger laughs at him.[2] Years later, Tess looks back on that period and says, “Things might’ve been different without Roger, but I really was awful.”[8]
Trivia & observations
- Veronica confirmed the chapter as canon in a 2026 ask and placed it in the group’s freshman year, when Tess was “back when she was evil”.[6] She also acknowledged that its chronology conflicts with a line in Dinner Time and attributed the inconsistency to having fleshed Matt out only after his one-off main-comic debut.[6][9]
- Released for members in 2016, the chapter was available in full by June 2018 as the free sample comic on the BCI information page.[10]
- The hallway posters behind Matt read “class is not consent” and “wonder trade”. The first follows the wording of the “cosplay is not consent” convention slogan, while Wonder Trade is a feature in Pokémon X and Y.[1]
Related chapters
- Happy Hour: Matt makes his first main-comic appearance at a party at Rachel’s house, with their friendship already established. Blind Date takes place earlier and is his chronologically earliest appearance.
- Pillow Talk: Jessica’s flashbacks provide the only other on-panel depiction of Tess and Roger’s bullying days. They show Roger kicking Aaron while Tess laughs.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Blind Date, page 1 🔒 (members only)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Blind Date, page 2 🔒 (members only)
- ↑ Blind Date, page 3 🔒 (members only)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Blind Date, page 4 🔒 (members only)
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Blind Date, page 5 🔒 (members only)
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 “Ask response on when Jordan became friends with Jessica and Rachel”. 2026-04-13.
- ↑ Chapter 90: Golden Hour, page 1
- ↑ Chapter 85: Total Recall, page 39
- ↑ Chapter 65: Dinner Time, page 11
- ↑ “Ask response on the free BCI sample comic”. 2018-06-29.