My success story.

As a freshman coming onto Columbia’s campus last year, I was looking for love. Every day was a new day where I could meet my future husband. I mean that’s what college is for, right? So, I wandered Butler Library looking lost, went to Amity on the weekends, flirted shamelessly with the mailroom workers, but, alas, I never found my soulmate.

Thus, when the Columbia Marriage Pact email entered my inbox with the subject line “Love loading…” I was intrigued. I gleefully filled out the questionnaire, ensuring my match would be a beautiful man that was okay with having a gay child, respected activists, and said no to hard drugs (and yes to soft ones). As the weeks went by, I anxiously watched my inbox, wondering who this anonymous void would prescribe to be my beloved. 

When the results returned, I was a little surprised. I got a good friend of mine that I participated in extracurriculars with and knew a bit from some of my home friends. But, ultimately, this was not a man that I was seeking to pursue romantically. Here we arrive at a classic queer conundrum: the risk of your marriage pact actually being one of your gays. 

Later that day, we ran into each other outside of John Jay and both yelled to celebrate our new marriage. We were friends before the pact, but were suddenly thrust into the prospect of spending the rest of our lives together. We both concluded that in 60 years, if no one else came along, we would honor the pact. But until then, our freshman friendship should continue to blossom. The marriage pact became the running inside joke that built one of my most treasured Columbia friendships. I mean, the match didn’t lie. 

At the beginning of spring semester, he asked me if I wanted to room with him the following year. And the rest, as they say, is history. While my marriage pact results didn’t return the man who would become my husband as I had hoped, it did give me something better: an amazing roommate. 

It’s that time of year again! Undergrads of the Barnumbia sphere are receiving the slightly cryptic, yet enticing emails to fill out the carefully constructed survey. If you are hesitating whether to fill out the marriage pact, I say just do it. Of course there is the risk you could match with a freak, or you could find the love of your life, or even a future roommate. But, at the very least, you can meet an acquaintance who feels similarly about kinky sex and believes abortions should be legal.

Love phones via Bwog Archives