Third Time’s the Charm: How Matt and Alex Found Their Perfect Pairing

Matt and Alex

Unsure about your Marriage Pact match? Never fear. It took UVA junior Alex three tries to meet Matt, her near-perfect 99.98 percent match (and boyfriend of more than 8 months). 

Alex:

I talked to my first match, but I wasn’t really into it. And the second one I didn’t even talk to at all. 

Luckily, last fall was different. Huddled side-by-side at Alex’s desk in Georgetown—where she’s been staying for a summer internship— the pair take me back to the November evening when it all began. 

Matt:

We matched November 1. We actually got the initials of our match that same night. 

Alex:

I found him, actually. But there’s a lot of people with the initials MB, so I wasn’t really sure at the time. 

Matt:

I got AH and didn’t even know where to start. I was like, “I’ll just wait.” I thought that it would have been a nice bonus to meet someone, but I wasn’t really expecting anything. 

Alex:

My friends and I were all sitting together and texting each other screenshots of our matches, in case anyone knew of them or had followed them.

Matt:

It was a Sunday night. Sunday nights are my really big grind time, because it’s basically the only time I do work on the weekend. But I didn’t get any work done.

I remember texting my friends and asking, “Has anyone heard of this girl?” and some of them were like, “Oh yeah!” I remember you were private on Instagram at first, and I truly believe against private Instagrams. But I let it slide.  

After requesting to follow Alex, they chatted via DM for a couple of days before going out for sandwiches the following week. 

Alex:

I remember coming back from our first date, and I told all my friends that it was the best first date I had ever been on. He had said something about education that I always say. 

Matt:

About education being the most important thing, because it’s where everything starts. 

Alex:

Exactly, if you fix that, you fix the real issue. But he said that, and I was like—

Alex recreates her astonished gasp. 

Alex:

So we found a lot of similar interests and values, definitely. 

Matt:

We have similar values in terms of what’s important to us, and wanting to help people in our respective fields. 

Alex:

We both want to be involved in the public sector; he’s more into environmental stuff while I’m into education.

I think we also both value our relationships with friends. I ranked the question about having your partner like your friends really highly in the survey. My friends really like him, which is something that’s super important to me. We actually found out afterwards that we run in similar circles. 

Matt:

Yeah, we have a lot of friends that knew each other before. 

Alex:

Once we connected the dots, our match made a lot of sense. 

Matt and Alex stayed in touch over Thanksgiving break and were dating before the end of the semester. After a couple of tame first dates, they went with something more eccentric for the third. 

Alex:

We saw Rocky Horror together. 

Matt:

Our school put on a shadow cast of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. It was definitely an interesting third date.

But we had gotten dinner before that, and both of our friend groups were there, so we could have split up afterwards. But I decided to go hang with your friends and see this show instead. It could have gone really badly, but it actually went really well. 

Other highlights from their first three months together included a private week-long getaway (in COVID isolation). Spending seven days together in a small room might be the ultimate compatibility test for a new couple, but Matt and Alex passed with flying colors. 

Alex:

We both got COVID in February, so I ended up quarantining with him. I had a roommate, so he couldn’t come to me. Since we hadn’t spent a ton of time together, I was worried that we would get annoyed with each other, but that didn’t happen. It was super nice not being alone. 

Matt:

I lived in an apartment and had my own bathroom last year. I had roommates, but I never needed to go out into the common area. So they would just bring us food. It was actually really fun. 

Alex:

We played cards a bunch. And I watched him play video games. 

Matt:

Literally the only time I had used my Xbox. 

That week was certainly a test of Matt and Alex’s patience — something that’s fortunately come naturally to them over the course of their relationship. 

Matt:

Alex is always so patient with me. I talk about the same thing a lot, because I have a big leadership role and am complaining about it all the time. But Alex is just really good at listening to me when I’ve had a bad day. 

Matt and Alex finished their sophomore year hand-in-hand before temporarily parting ways for the summer. While the distance was traversable, it took a bit of coordination. 

Matt:

I’m in Charlottesville staying at UVA, and she’s in DC. 

Alex:

His internship is online and mine is in person, so it's a little bit easier for him to come here during the week. And then I come to him on the weekends. 

Matt:

We’re just making it work. 

Remember: the third time’s the charm. When in doubt, hang in there; you just might find the Matt to your Alex. 

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