Randy Blaser has a Facebook page looking for a date on Valentine's Day this year. He didn't think he'd receive many responses, but he's received more than 20 messages from people.

Local resident seeking a date, 1M likes with Facebook campaign

Randy Blaser didn’t set out to find love this Valentine’s Day, but a date would be great.

The 33-year-old Austin resident hasn’t seriously dated for a few years and decided on a lark to search for someone to spend time with this year. Inspired by recent social media campaigns to garner a lot of “likes” or “retweets” for a cause, he half-jokingly decided to make a Facebook page asking for 1 million likes: As Blaser puts it, surely there would be a one-in-a-million woman for him on his page, right?

“I break out laughing every time I think about it,” Blaser said. “I was just kind of joking around and decided, ‘You know, I’m going to make one of those.’”

Though he made the page in mid-January, it quickly caught on. As of last week, Blaser said more than 3,000 people have viewed his Facebook page, called “A Date.”

“Within that first day, I got about 20 messages from a bunch of different people, people I didn’t even know,” Blaser said. “One older lady told me that if it worked, it was probably one of the most romantic things that I’m ever going to do in my lifetime. Only if it works, though.”

Blaser has spoken with about 20 people thus far, some from Minnesota, and others from as far away as Montana. No local woman has messaged him yet, but the people he has spoken to seem nice enough.

He even got an unexpected phone call: Someone tried to pick him up while he was going to work, though at the time he thought it was a friend playing a prank on him.

“When I got home that day, I deleted my phone number [from my Facebook account],” he said with a laugh.

Blaser is still hoping someone would like to go on a nice, quiet date with him this Valentine’s Day, though he may have to shuffle a few plans around. As a Direct Service Professional who works with mental illness patients for REM, Blaser will spend part of Valentine’s Day chaperoning a date between two of the people he assists, so he’ll need to ask for a little time off next Thursday for any date of his own.

He’s not looking for anything big, mind you. Blaser just wants a nice time getting to know someone. He describes himself as a bit old school: He prefers giving flowers, going out for coffee, maybe even going to see a show or going on a walk on Valentine’s Day, as opposed to trying to hook up with someone.

“It’s that day you treat your girlfriend a little special, or treat a date to something nice,” Blaser said.

Aside from his job at REM, Blaser is a fitness nut — he likes to run about 5 miles a day — and a bit of a video gamer who also likes heavy metal music, among other music genres. He owns a pet iguana and is looking to buy a house soon.

Blaser said he didn’t expect much out of the Facebook page, but he has met a lot of new people in the process. He’s still holding out hope for a good Valentine’s Day.

“I’d go out on a date if someone wanted to,” he said.