Ruining their friendship was probably the best decision Jake and Cameron could have made.
Now rising juniors, the pair became best friends shortly after the start of their freshman year at Stanford. They kept things strictly platonic for months—but after a summer of intimate late-night conversations and meandering walks across campus interrupted only by the glow of the sunrise, they decided to throw caution to the wind.
Their decision couldn’t have been more spot-on. The following November, the Marriage Pact algorithm paired the two together once again with a flawless 100 percent match. Here’s their story.
Jake and Cameron didn’t have a typical freshman year. In response to intense COVID restrictions in the fall of 2020, the couple spent their first quarter at Stanford nearly 800 miles from campus, in a house with 20 other wide-eyed frosh eager to emulate the true college experience.
Jake:
We weren’t allowed to live on campus for our freshman year. But in the beginning of the fall of 2020, we met each other kind of living in a hype house situation. We were living in Scottsdale, Arizona together with a group of people.
That’s how we first met, and we were friends for almost a year. And then that next summer, we both went back to campus and started dating in the middle of the summer.
Cameron:
I would not use the term hype house. That’s just not a good look.
Jake:
Ok, well I was gonna say learning pod, but every time I say learning pod Cameron rolls her eyes. So I just said hype house.
Cameron:
There was this frantic rush over the summer of all these people trying to recreate the college experience in these random locations. I feel like hype house makes it sound way worse.
There was everything. There were Facebook groups, there were GroupMe groups. There were… Google Slides? Like, powerpoints where people would each make a slide about themselves. Every type of social media was fully deployed to sort people into these groups.
Jake:
I felt that anything was a better alternative to staying in my room that whole year. And there were some great things that came from it. I met Cameron, I got to have some really fun experiences.
Cameron:
Not to be super corny, but if I had never lived in Scottsdale, I probably never would have met Jake, and it would have changed the entire trajectory of my college experience. Like, before he was my boyfriend, Jake was my best friend, unequivocally.
That spring, the pair both took a quarter off in different locations, though the two kept in touch via the occasional FaceTime. By the time Cameron and Jake moved onto campus that summer, their friendship had never been stronger.
Cameron:
We were closest as friends over the summer. For a lot of our friendship, I was in a relationship with someone else, so we really were just friends. But by the time summer came around, we were both single.
Jake:
I had on and off feelings for her for a good amount of time. Eventually over the summer we spent so much time together, that it was clear to me that I was into her.
Cameron:
We really were spending an inordinate amount of time together. We got on this same sort of schedule where we’d go to class, do our homework, and then starting at midnight, we would embark on these insane walks around campus.
Jake:
It would be like 6 hours long.
Cameron:
From like midnight to literally 6am we’d go on these crazy walks. We literally explored every part of campus. Every statue, every fountain. And then the sun would rise, the birds would chirp, and we would go back to our separate beds and go to sleep. And we just thought this was a normal friendship.
Jake:
I felt that we were doing everything that people who were flirting with each other would be doing. Spending time with each other, going on walks, having meaningful conversations, making each other laugh, all that. It was very hard to know at what point this was more than a friendship.
It was strange because we were so close, so shooting my shot with her didn’t only come with the fear of rejection, but also losing my best friend in my whole college experience.
Jake and Cameron were understandably wary of jeopardizing such a special friendship. But after spending every waking moment together for weeks on end, the pair could no longer deny their palpable romantic connection—and decided to take the plunge.
Jake:
One night, we were hanging out in my room, and were just lying down on the floor. I decided to say, “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to say this to you if I don’t say it now.” I told her how I felt, and it was really hard. And Cameron told me she felt similarly. She said it was inevitable, but she wasn’t sure if she wanted a relationship or not.
Cameron:
I didn’t know how I felt about Jake, because we had such an intimate friendship for so long. And to complicate matters, I was a freshman who hadn’t really situated herself at school yet, and didn’t have an established group of friends. I felt very vulnerable and wanted to cling onto this one friend I had, and I was worried about complicating the relationship. But ultimately I was just really overthinking it.
Jake:
The next night, we went to visit the horses in the Stanford barn. And we walked back from the barn, and had this very long romantic walk. More romantic than the other ones had been. And eventually, we just decided that we should be together.
Of course, every new relationship comes with a few obstacles.
Cameron:
It’s important to note that at the beginning of our relationship, Jake had both arms in a cast.
Jake:
A couple of days before we started dating, I hit a bump and flew over the handles of my bike. So for the next six weeks, I had both arms in a sling, and then my left arm in a cast.
Cameron:
It was so inopportune. We had been friends for so long, and we’re finally able to be more physically intimate, and he can’t move his arms.
Nonetheless, the pair were able to embark on a few memorable adventures together that summer.
Cameron:
For one of our first dates, we watched a movie with all of these blankets and pillows on the roof of the Stanford Bookstore. Despite Jake’s injury, we finally climbed onto the roof.
Jake:
We watched Shutter Island.
Cameron:
We hated it. We didn’t like it so much that we stopped halfway through. We looked at the stars though. It was very picturesque.
For the next few months, Cameron and Jake basked in the bliss of new romance, enjoying a breezy autumn together on campus. When November rolled around, talk of the elusive Marriage Pact survey began to permeate dorms and dining halls once again.
Cameron:
We had some discourse about whether we should take it because we were already dating. But the Marriage Pact was just so fun that I couldn’t pass it up.
Jake:
The way that Marriage Pact was pitched to me as a freshman was that a lot of people meet a good friend that they share a lot in common with, or just a fun questionnaire to fill out with your friends. So even though we were already together our sophomore year, the spirit of it wouldn’t be to find someone new to date.
Cameron:
We were heading to the same place when the initials came out. I got the initials JZ, and I was like, “No, it couldn’t be.”
Jake:
I saw the initials after I met up with Cameron. Everyone was like, “Jake, check your email, check your initials right now.” And I saw it was CL, and it was such a shock.
Cameron scrolls through her camera roll to find the screenshot of their perfect 100% match. “Your match: pure gold,” the email reads.
Jake:
I thought it was very cute. I wasn’t shocked that we were compatible, I was shocked that it so specifically was her.
Cameron:
I think that a lot of people are against the idea of dating someone in college because it feels very serious and committed. So it felt great to have this algorithmic validation of this relationship that I already knew was so wonderful.
I asked Jake and Cameron what makes them such a compatible pair. Barring a few granular differences in survey answers, the couple say they align on the values that matter most.
Cameron:
I felt certain that we would not match, because I said that voting even in local elections is most important, and you’re like a “sometimes” voter.
But I think that we’re both exceedingly communicative, and not super spontaneous people. And our political values align too.
Jake:
It’s so easy for us to continue a conversation on forever, in a way that makes it very seamless.
Cameron and Jake had a bit of trouble articulating their differences, likely because they’re few and far between.
Cameron:
I do think I’m maybe a bit more crass than Jake is. He definitely appeals more to crowds. I think Jake is more inclined to like people and be liked by people. He’s more of a dog person, and I’m more of a cat person.
Jake:
But despite that, I think Cameron is more social. She spends more time with people, at social events, getting involved in school.
And I really admire how much Cameron cares about not only me, but about other people. When I speak with her, I feel so listened to and cared about. She’s a really good advice giver, and just has a very calming presence.
Cameron and Jake also say their academic interests compliment each other well.
Cameron:
I’m also studying Poli Sci and Philosophy, while Jake is an Econ major who’s into finance. So we're in very different circles. But I like that there are some areas that are designated mine and some that are designated his.
Jake:
I really like math puzzles and riddles, and working with numbers. And I really hate reading and writing, anything English related. And even though Cameron is good with numbers and math…
Cameron:
Okay, I appreciate you hyping me up, but that’s not even true. I feel like I’m innumerate, and you’re illiterate.
But I always say that Jake is among the, if not the, smartest person I’ve known, and I mean it. He has such an extensive vocabulary and can spit off all these esoteric thoughts. But he also has such wonderful reasoning and brilliant ideas, and I envy the way he thinks.
Since their Marriage Pact match, Cameron and Jake have created a plethora of memories together—though they say they cherish the intimate moments just as much as the extravagant ones.
Jake:
I think some of the most memorable moments of our relationship weren’t doing all these crazy activities.
Cameron:
A lot of it was just walking around Stanford at night.
I actually think a big theme in our relationship is walking long distances. This one time we walked like 15 miles, like we had been walking all day, and then we went to Ben and Jerry’s. And it was so good. After walking all day, that ice cream was the best thing I had ever eaten. I think I literally cried.
Jake:
I do think one great memory came at the beginning of this summer, when Cameron spent four days with me in Miami. Especially because dating over the summer is so difficult, especially during college, I was so grateful that she got to spend time with me. We had the best time. We went to the beach, explored a couple restaurants, watched a lot of movies.
Cameron:
It hadn’t even been that long since we had seen each other during spring quarter, but it was so nice. I think our relationship had always existed in this very communal setting, like a dorm or a house.
It was really wonderful to get this time together without these distractions and classes and people, where it was really just me and Jake.
This coming fall, Jake and Cameron will be living in the same house on campus, and are ecstatic to be spending the second half of their college careers hand-in-hand.
The only thing better than living a love story is getting to write it with your best friend. So if you’re lacking the courage to make a move, remember that the reward could be well worth the risk.
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