Conversations: Married Before 22
I spoke with an effective altruist, a Mormon and a liberal Protestant on super-young marriage.
Welcome to the CHH Conversations series- I’m aiming to do one a week, detailing a person (or people) who belong to an interesting group which is either part of the current zeitgeist, typically unheard, or just something I find super interesting. Note that my interviewing someone doesn’t mean I agree with them or approve of what they say—in fact, I may strongly disagree with many of the people I interview! I do, however, appreciate that anyone gave me any amount of their time, so be nice.
Daphne, American think tank worker, 22, and Matt, Canadian politics/government worker, 25
Met at 20 and 23, Married at 21 and 24
All questions answered by Daphne
So how did you meet?
Effective altruism conference.
OK, I’m gonna have to hear more about this.
Basically: it was fall 2022, peak FTX/SBF money. our travel was completely covered, we meet at a random lunch table and just start talking
How did you get invited exactly?
You apply if you’re involved with EA stuff. So I was running the club at my college and interning at one of the EA funded non profits. My college group all stayed in a big airbnb. Matt applied for career advice and they told him to apply to the conference.
How did you guys approach each other? What did you notice about him or vice versa?
So i was looking for random people to eat lunch with and started chatting with some guy who was super boring. But Matt was across the table on his laptop and was really hot. eventually I got his attention and boring guy left. We had a really good conversation about my internship and FDA reform and there was obvious chemistry, so I messaged him on the conference app and asked him to dinner.
How did it progress to a committed relationship?
We hooked up that night and just kept texting ever since. Caught feelings, etc. He came to visit me at college like 2 months after we met.
At what point was it clear that it was exclusive and serious? And how long had you known each other by then?
It was kinda gradual thing. I kept insisting it was all casual all fun vibes while texting like every second and calling almost every day. Matt was pretty clear from the beginning he wanted to marry me lol. But eventually Matt was like “either commit to this being a relationship or we have to stop talking this much I can’t take it” which like fair. That was after a month of texting every day. Then he visited like a month later.
Did you initially have any hesitations about committing? And why do you think Matt felt so strongly about being committed at that age?
I was getting over a recent ex and also was skeptical about an international long distance relationship. I think Matt was really obsessed with me specifically, I can ask what he remembers about that time though.
Can you tell me a little about your engagement and wedding?
He’s Canadian and we've been trying to figure out how to live in the same place. Last fall it started becoming really obvious we would have to get married for this to for sure work. We kept flirting with/joking about the idea of getting married, but the more research we did the more it made sense. He was visiting for new years and we scheduled a walk to basically talk about it. We talked about kids/family/where we wanted to live/all the other things you want to be on the same page about before getting married, especially as young as we are. Conversation went well, we basically already knew all that stuff about each other. Then this IDIOT says, “oh by the way, my grandma gave me a ring to give you but like I didn't want to surprise you with it” and I'm like, ??? why did you not bring it on this walk???
So anyway, I wear the ring for the next bit, but we don't really consider it exactly an engagement because we aren't really sure when we're going to get married or the timeline or anything.
THEN through an effective altruism org, Matt gets a free consult with an immigration lawyer who says, get married ASAP you have no idea how long the visa stuff takes, you idiots do it now. This call is on Monday March 4th. I'm flying to Canada to see Matt for my spring break that week. We basically decide that Monday to get married while I’m there. So we start planning a quick elopement but like, classy. I had previously thrifted a wedding dress just in case something like this happened, Matt did all the arrangements in Canada like booking a hotel/dinner/found a photographer online and getting the paper work ready for the marriage license. I reach out to a florist who tells me they can only work with me the day I land in Canada so I get off the plane and we went there immediately. We ended up not being able to get married in the courthouse because they wouldn't marry us due to tax season, they were too busy. we found an officiant who people on r/ottawa recommended, he was free. We got married 8 days after the call with the lawyer.
Do you want kids and if so what is your plan around amount, timeline etc?
Probably want kids! I didn’t used to want kids. We almost didn’t date for that reason. It seemed silly to me to commit when we had opposite views on this. But over the course of our relationship I’ve become much more open to the idea. I think Matt would be a great dad.
Carter, 29, software engineer, and Lydia, 29, accountant
Met at 10, married at 21
All questions answered by Carter
Can you tell me about how you met and how that progressed to a relationship?
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