Marriage Pact matches don’t need to be romantic

Last semester, I eagerly took a 50 question Buzzfeed-like quiz about love. Now, I’m the assistant opinion editor of the Vermont Cynic.

UVM’s latest Marriage Pact matches were released on Oct. 27.

My first Marriage Pact didn’t give me the boyfriend I thought it would, but with the help of my top-ten match, it brought back my love for writing.

The Marriage Pact is a 50 question quiz aimed to match students with a compatible potential partner. 

Students hope the quick questionnaire brings them love, but your match doesn’t need to be romantic to be successful.

The Marriage Pact was created in 2017 when students from Stanford’s Market Design class designed an algorithm that used psychology, market design and computer science to create the questionnaire, according to the Marriage Pact website.

UVM joined the Marriage Pact train last semester right in time for Valentine’s Day, according to a Feb. 7 Instagram post by @uvmmissedconnections.

I took last year’s Marriage Pact after leaving a messy “situationship,” essentially a relationship with no label, that brought me an immense amount of pain and anger.

At that point in my life, I thought I needed a boyfriend to pull me out of my pit of sadness, so I wanted the Marriage Pact to bring me love. In the end, it did, just not in the way I expected.

My match and I were last semester’s eighth best match on campus. Obviously, I thought we were soulmates. 

He left me on read after talking for a day. Any hope I had for a successful Marriage Pact went down the drain within 24 hours of receiving my match.

Life went on, but a little while down the road we met by chance and now have a lovely friendship.

He found out I liked to write and immediately encouraged me to join the Cynic. 

With a little push from my match, I took a leap of faith and decided I’d try out writing opinion pieces. 

Instead of falling head over heels in love with my marriage pact match, I fell for writing and for myself.

I love writing for the Cynic, but I often forget how I got here.

The Marriage Pact didn’t give me a boyfriend, it gave me something better. 

I made incredible friends, acquired silly stories and started to feel pride, purpose and happiness again.

Maybe your Marriage Pact is your soulmate or maybe they are just another Instagram follower. 

Slide into those DMs and see if your match can bring you unexpected happiness, it worked for me.