My college boyfriend and I made a marriage pact at Georgetown, but he cheated on me. Our breakup was a blessing.

• I took it as a sign when a campus matchmaking service paired me with my already serious boyfriend.
• After that, we decided to make a pact that one day we'd get married — then he cheated.
• I regret buying into the "we met in college" love story, and I partly blame the matchmaking service.

"Welcome Rookie Romantics," read the first email I ever received from Georgetown University's Marriage Pact in 2021. 

At the time, I was a sophomore living with three friends in an apartment in Washington, DC, completing classwork online and casually seeing a boy I had met in my English class. As I read the details of the Marriage Pact, a student-run matchmaking service on campus, I felt excited.

In fall 2021, I participated in the Marriage Pact and was matched with the boy who I was then seriously dating. I took it as a sign that we were meant to be — until I learned he cheated on me with his ex.

The Marriage Pact is a schoolwide, student-run survey 

The survey is released once a year at nearly 80 schools across the US, including Georgetown. It consists of 100 or so questions that are supposedly research-backed. An algorithm is then supposed to match you with the person on campus with whom you're most compatible.

But it doesn't end there. Once the survey is complete, and you receive your match's email address, you can meet them and consider making a marriage pact — that is, an agreement that if you're both single at a certain age, you will get married.

When I matched with my boyfriend, many accused us of cheating the system

Before I enrolled at Georgetown, a guide on my campus tour told us, prospective students, a probably bogus statistic: About 60% of Georgetown students marry another Georgetown student. As much as I wish it hadn't, that statistic stuck with me. The Marriage Pact exacerbated the pressure to meet my soulmate while on campus. 

That's why I felt so lucky when I was matched with my boyfriend; it felt like a sign that we were meant to be together. It also felt like the plot of a fun teen-romance novel after we met in English class and geeked out over literature.

I started to think about how great of a love story it would be if I had a collegiate marriage pact with my boyfriend.

When we matched, many of our friends accused us of taking the quiz together. We hadn't, and the match became part of our story as a couple. We ended up making an actual marriage pact after that, and we were even interviewed by the Marriage Pact company.

Less than 2 weeks later, I learned my boyfriend cheated on me with his ex-girlfriend

Within two weeks, I found out he cheated on me with his ex. He came clean about it the day after it happened, but the honesty didn't make it hurt any less. While he was telling me how it wasn't my fault, I was just sitting there, thinking that this was a plot twist I had not been prepared for — and that I needed to get out.

I decided to dump him a few days after that. We had been dating for a year and a half at that point. His actions conveyed that he had always believed there was someone else at Georgetown who was better for him than I was. It made me furious, and it destroyed the Marriage Pact illusion for me once and for all.

I now realize that it was a blessing because I shouldn't have been thinking about marriage while I was a student anyways

Looking back, I realize the Marriage Pact got in my head. That my ex-boyfriend was the person at Georgetown with whom I was most "compatible" shouldn't have warranted a marriage pact between us. We had no business making that agreement. 

I regret buying into the romantic "we met in college" story, and I think the Marriage Pact is partially to blame.

Now, as a graduating senior, I remind myself that I didn't come to Georgetown to get an "MRS" degree. I came to Georgetown to learn how to write a much more interesting story.