Parlour Talk
I'm not a big believer in destiny, but had I not entered a certain college in a particular year, I would never have met my wife. We fell in love during sophomore year and married two years later. If I can't ascribe this good fortune to fate, what was it that brought our stars into alignment?
An admissions office, of course. Two distinct decisions made by a committee in early 1966 brought a pretty young woman from Connecticut and me from Pennsylvania to a small Vermont college town. The result: 30 years of marriage, a family, and a life together. This long-ago twist of fate--and this issue's tender portraits of eight Swarthmore couples ("Matchbox Flames," page 30)--makes me wonder whether Swarthmore's admissions staff considers potential unions as they pore over those stacks of recommendations, essays, and test scores. Do they ever, even in jest, speculate on whether Heather from Honolulu might be just right for Mike from Michigan?
"Well ... yes," said Director of Admissions Jim Bock '90 with a sheepish smile, "it does come up." He hastened to add that Swarthmore's admissions staff prides itself on getting to know as much as possible about applicants as individuals, and an admissions decision would never be made on the basis of a candidate's potential for romance. But he admits it's not unheard of for the deans to speculate on how two students with similar interests might relate to each other.
Assistant Dean of Admissions Megan Smith '96 said it's the quirky, unusual things about certain applicants that make her think of others who might naturally become their friends at Swarthmore. She recalls reading a recent applicant's essay about watching spiders on the front porch and thinking immediately of a Swarthmore sophomore who had written about spiders two years before. Should she introduce them, she wondered?
Another time, when Smith actually did attempt to introduce two accepted students from separate high schools in the same city, she found that the pair had already met at home--and had been dating for several months. Talk about fate.
Whether you believe that such relationships spring from destiny or mere coincidence, college is definitely a time and place to fall in love. In one admissions brochure, Swarthmore students are described as having "a passion for learning," but clearly that's not all. Their well-known love for ideas, activities, and causes is often coupled with a passion for each other.
Thousands of Swarthmoreans have met and married over the years, and although not all have managed to stay married, most continue to share an additional passion--for the College itself. There's a reason. As Michael Graves '69 wrote, "Our years at Swarthmore were among the best in our lives. We learned a lot, became adults, and fell in love." You don't have to marry another Swarthmorean to experience this, but somehow these matchbox couples seem to feel a deep connection to the College.
It's said that at freshman orientation, new students are asked to look around at their classmates, and then told that about one in seven will marry a fellow student. I'm sure that nervous laughter ripples among the 18 year olds, but I know it's true--because it worked for me.
--Jeffrey Lott
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