Mammoth Meet Cute: Alumni Couples Share Stories

Mina Enayati-Uzeta ’25 Staff Writer

Awkward eye contact with a Tinder match in the Science Center. Pointed avoidance of last semester’s situationship by the bagel station in Valentine Dining Hall. Amherst can be a lot of things, but for many of us, it’s not where we find The One. As a belated celebration of this campus’ most awkward pseudo-holiday, here are four glimpses into the stories of alumni who have done the impossible: they all found love at Amherst.

had their first-year seminar and a Mandarin class together, the two were acquaintances at best. “We just saw each other around,” said Jennifer. “We were — we still are — very different people.” Jennifer was a WAMH DJ and a member of the Bluestockings’ founding class; Sam was a lacrosse player with a habit of early-morning bike rides through the bird sanctuary.

sitting there staring at each other’s faces, like for hours on end. And so we started to spend a lot of time talking to each other.” ter-writing summer … an epistolary romance.”

“I don’t think we were that forth- coming in real life — we were both a little bit shy. And yet, with a letter … maybe [we] felt safe,” she said.

Jennifer Jang ’92 and Sam Becker ’92

Years Together: 34

Jennifer and Samuel’s freshman year was a series of near-misses. Though they lived only a few rooms apart in Valentine Dining Hall, and

But they bridged the gap between their social circles in their sophomore year, when they ended up in a third class together — an arts course, this time as partners. “The point of the class’ projects were, with your partner, to sculpt each other,” Jennifer explained. “So it’s a lot of time together … just the two of you

As the two grew closer, they went on a series of “un-dates” — situations where one considered it a date while the other didn’t — a reggae concert, a trip to Puffer’s Pond, a movie. At the end of the school year, Jennifer returned home to California, while Sam went to lead a white-water rafting expedition in North Carolina.

“Me, I’m a letter writer. So I sent him a letter that summer … and his parents forwarded it to where he was, in North Carolina,” Jennifer said. “I was astonished — I was actually very surprised when I got a letter back.”

And so began “a whole let- called Alina. “Like going-homeacross-the-country[-to-]Arizona-right-after bad.” relationship.

The two first met during auditions for a Green Room production of “Into the Woods,” at which they both were trying out for Little Red Riding Hood. (“She got it, and I got some random ensemble part. I was just along for the ride,” Paola said). Paola, whose freshman-year friend group had recently been dissolved by a messy breakup, began to hang out more with the theater community.

[Paola] was my neighbor, she kind of became co-dog mom,” Alina said. (Her dog, Mugsie, was said to have been a minor campus celebrity.)

Years

Paola and Alina’s story began the night before Alina’s graduation, when an alcohol-induced commencement party hookup pushed their two-year friendship into uncharted romantic territory.

“It was like, really bad,” re-

The following school year, when Paola was a junior and Alina was a senior, the two arrived on move-in day to find that they were neighbors.

“I had an emotional support animal my senior year, so because

Throughout the year, Paola and Alina grew closer, with Paola choosing to stay on campus rather than study abroad and miss Alina’s final semester at Amherst. But even as their chemistry, which “was always there,” grew more palpable, both tried to prioritize their friendship. “We were part of this larger group, and we didn’t want to mess up dynamics,” said Paola.

Even after their first foray into romance, both women harbored serious doubts about the future — they were reluctant to do long-distance or even label it a

“We decided — let’s kind of put it on pause and see where we’re at after I graduate,” Paola said. The next summer, the two made it “official official,” and Paola moved to Arizona, where Alina was living.

“I would definitely say this is the healthiest relationship I’ve ever been in,” Alina said.

“I had all these rules in my mind about what relationships were like, and how much I was allowed to express and give, and all of that … totally dissolved,” Paola added.

The couple got engaged in December 2021 — they both proposed to one another — and are looking to get married in Amherst.

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