Although many mock the Dartmouth dating scene, senior couples for whom wedding bells are ringing this year are a testament to the fact that on this campus, true love is definitely possible.
Home-grown couples Jaime Dodge '00 and Sean Byrnes '00, and Jennifer Hickey '00 and Will Peoples '00 plan to marry after graduation.
The Girl Across the Hall
Dodge and Byrnes lived across the hall from each other freshman fall. Because both were early risers, they often met for breakfast by chance at the Hop and, bonding over omelets and bagels, became fast friends.
Soon, the morning mates were contemplating more than just friendship. The relationship got off to a rocky start, however. As Dodge explained, "he dated me for just one week."
Indeed, Dodge remembered that "we were driving everyone on our floor crazy because we'd break up and then get back together a few hours later."
Despite uncertain beginnings, however, Dodge was not about to give up on her crush, and decided to place a culinary treat outside Byrnes's door as a peace offering.
"I won his heart with chocolate chip cookies," she said in jest.
Byrnes apparently enjoyed the cookies, because by senior year the pair was considering marriage.
"I'm so easy it's ridiculous," Byrnes laughed.
The couple decided to make their own engagement rings at Dartmouth's jewelry studio. Dodge's ring contains a green stone, "for Dartmouth," she explained.
Yet at the time of his interview, Brynes hadn't yet formally proposed, although he had already formulated a plan of action.
"For the first two years we were dating, I would write Jaime poems once a month," he said. "I am planning on taking her back to the place we went on our first date, Patrick Henry's, and having a poem ready with the key phrase as the last line."
The couple plans to wait a year before getting married in order to accommodate their plans for graduate study.
"We're both doing masters programs on opposite coasts," Dodge explained.
But Byrnes did not foresee the distance as presenting an untranscedable barrier, and pointed out that, due to the D-plan, the pair had been apart for off-terms before, and that the relationship hadn't suffered.
Opposites Attract
Hickey and Peoples met while watching a presidential debate at the Rockefeller Center freshman year. But, as the couple explained, it wasn't quite love at first sight.
"At the time I was this raving Republican and she was a big time Democrat," Peoples recalled.
Hickey, unimpressed with Peoples's derogatory Clinton impression, said she remembers thinking to herself, "Who was this Dole-loving hick from Waco, Texas?"
Peoples's affinity for Dole diminished over the years, however, and he now identifies himself as a Democrat; Hickey said she likes to believe she had something to do with that.
The pair became "best friends" over the course of the Fall term, and by the end of the year the friendship had grown into something more. By senior winter, Peoples was ready to pop the big question.
After spending winter break in their respective homes, the pair had to meet at the beginning of the term to exchange Christmas gifts. Peoples presented a surprised Hickey with an engagement ring.
"We had talked about marriage before but I didn't know that he would propose then," she said, adding that she began to cry as she immediately accepted the proposal.
Because of Hickey's graduate school plans, the couple plans to wait until next summer to have the wedding, and plans to marry in a Catholic Church in Boston or Cambridge.
