NICK GERRY-BULLARD ’06 AND EMILY FROST ’06
Nick and Emily have been together since literally day one—they first kissed at an orientation week party. It took them a few months after that to get things started, but by Thanksgiving of that year they were official.
“It was very exciting,” Nick said. “It was almost like because it happened so soon in the beginning of college, that it was something that comes along with the beginning of college. I didn’t have a Wesleyan experience outside of it.”
The two decided to share a house this year with two other friends, a step that made everyone nervous except Nick and Emily themselves.
“People sometimes raise their eyebrows at Nick and I being serious during college,” Emily said. “The way I think about it is, if you’re happy, don’t question it.”
“I think it works for us because we really enjoy each others’ company so much on an hour to hour basis,” Nick said. “It’s just a lot of fun.”
For Valentine’s Day this year, they don’t have specific plans but they have experience with romantic dates.
“I think once a month Nick decides that we need to have a romantic dinner,” Emily said.
“[The romance] is there,” Nick said. “You don’t have to create it.”
When each of them decided to go abroad last spring they tried an open relationship, but, as Nick said, “we realized that that wasn’t any fun and we wanted to be together.”
The two traveled all over Europe together and collected stories that, Nick realized, made no sense to anyone else.
“[My family] wanted the tally of all the stories,” he said. “I would try to tell a funny story and I realized that the only thing that made it funny was Emily’s and my sense of humor.”
“We’re both really silly together,” Emily said. “We have our own little world.”
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SOPHIE POLLITT-COHEN ’09 AND JAMES ROSENTHAL ’08
Though Sophie and James have been dating since Sophie’s first week at Wesleyan, they’ve known each other even longer, since Sophie visited at Wesfest.
“I said to my cousin, ‘That guy is really cute, who is that?” Sophie said. “She thought I was pointing to someone else. She said ‘Oh, he’s a senior.”
When the two meet again at a Beta party during Sophie’s orientation, it took a while to establish that James wasn’t a sketchy graduate returning to campus, but even longer to actually start flirting.
“I thought he was hitting on my friend,” Sophie said. “I said ‘Do you want her number? Because you can have it. OK, I’m gonna get a drink.”
Luckily, it didn’t take James long to clear up the situation.
“I gave her the Rosenthal charm,” he said.
After their awkward start, they both love the fact that they are comfortable around each other and take care of each other.
“I like that James is the ship on the smooth ocean and I’m like the terrible storm,” Sophie said. “For some reason with James I never, ever try to seem cool.”
“I like the way that she points out things about me, poking fun at me but it’s never mean-spirited,” James said. “It’s always making me look at myself and be like, wow, that’s ridiculous.”
As a freshman with a roommate, Sophie has started taking the necessary step of taking advantage of James’ single.
“Slowly all of my stuff is ending up at James’,” Sophie said.
“We’re taking it to the next level one step at a time,” James said.
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JESSE YOUNG ’06 and ELIZA FORD ’08
It took Jesse and Eliza almost a year after first being introduced, in November 2004, before they made things official.
“There was an ultimatum involved,” Eliza said of their decision to start dating last August.
Their relationship at Wesleyan has developed as they’ve learned to work with each others’ idiosyncracies and neuroses, which they say is the key to their relationship.
“I like the fact that she’ll let me rant about guitars and Bruce Springsteen and tolerate it for hours on end,” Jesse said. “We never get tired of each other, and we’re both equally incompetent and neurotic.”
According to Eliza they each go out of their way to do things for each other, ranging from cooking dinner and taking care of each others’ illnesses to city girl Eliza making the ultimate sacrifice of going on a hike with Jesse’s parents.
Eliza is also taking on her duty as a girlfriend to help Jesse with his sense of fashion.
“I’m trying to steer him away from flannel and plaid,” Eliza said.
“I think I could use a bit more metrosexuality in my life,” Jesse agreed.
They claim that they spend most of their time watching Vh1 or “Commander in Chief,” but Eliza says there’s another story there.
“He’s really good in bed,” she said.
Solo time aside, they also make sure to look after their friends, making plans and organizing parties to bring their respective groups of friends together. One such party was a Christmas cocktail party that required wearing ugly sweaters and reindeer jewelry.
“I think our relationship works because we both care a lot about our friends but we love each others’ friends a lot,” Eliza said.
And if nothing else, they can always use the “opposites attract” explanation.
“I stab children, and she saves them from burning buildings,” Jesse said, probably only half-joking.
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MANUEL SANCHEZ ’07 AND JENNY LOW ’06
When Jenny and Manuel met during a Prometheus practice in December of 2004, they had neither fire-spinning nor flirtation on their minds—they were thinking about food.
“The first thing we talked about was Kitchen Aid mixers,” said Jenny, an aspiring pastry chef who will attend the Culinary Institute of America next year.
It proved to be a telling start to their relationship, as Jenny and Manuel spend much of their time together eating food, cooking food, or watching it on TV.
“We watch a lot of the Food Network together, especially Alton Brown, because I’m a science geek,” Manuel said.
Over winter break the two traveled to Manuel’s native Argentina, where they used food to get over the challenges of spending so much time with one person.
“If we started getting angry with each other, he’d shove a pastry in my mouth and I’d get in a better mood,” Jenny said.
Their biggest claim to fame in Argentina, though, is what Jenny will only describe as “15 times. One night.” She thinks that says enough.
As it turns out, though, their shared interest in spinning fire is also an indicator of the strength of their relationship.
“There’s a lot of trust involved [in fire spinning], because you have to know that if one person messes up, the other person is going to run in with a wet towel and fix everything,” Jenny said.
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JUSTIN SCHMIDT ’06 AND SARA COHEN ’06
When Sara Cohen ’06 and Justin Schmidt ’06 first met, it was at the advent of the Friendster age, and all couples were forced to establish their relationship status for all to see. Lucky for them, their relationship wasn’t preceded by the awkward “are-we-or-aren’t-we?” phase that most Wesleyan couples go through, so checking the “in a relationship” box didn’t take much soul-searching.
“It made for a more exciting get-to-know-you period,” Sara said.
“By not being friends [first] it made it a lot easier,” Justin said.
At this point, two and a half years later, the two have the comfort of a married couple, even going as far as to take a couples pizza-making class with a slew of middle-aged couples.
“They all gave us romantic advice, like ‘run,” Sara said. “The women were all like ‘They need us dear, don’t worry.”
Like most couples, Sara and Justin credit their longevity to communication.
“We’re really good at talking about things as they come up,” Sara said. “We don’t really sweep anything under the rug.”
And by this point in the relationship, any potential deal-breakers have already come to the surface.
“There’s no issue or problem or concern that couldn’t be discussed,” Justin said.
Their comfort level isn’t all serious discussions and pizza-making; both Sara and Justin pride their comic rapport.
“We have our quirky aspects and we play off of each other,” Sara said.
“We should have a cooking show,” Justin said.
~~~
JANINA ZORN ’06 AND MICHAEL MOLINA ’07
Though Michael Molina ’07 and Janina Zorn ’06 first met at a “Pimps and Hoes” theme party, they swear it didn’t set the tone for the rest of their relationship. They describe themselves as “on and off” for two years, though they’ve now become inseparable.
“I’ve practically moved into her house,” Michael said. “My friends moved me into a smaller room [in the house]. I found that out today. I hadn’t been there in like a week.”
The two credit their differences to what makes their relationship work.
“We’re really different, and somehow that works really well,” Janina said.
Despite their differences, and the amount of time it took for them to become a couple, they spend all their time together without difficulty.
“We don’t schedule time apart,” Janina said. “If we’re not in class and don’t have stuff to do, we’re together.”
Though Michael says he likes Janina because “she cares about everything,” Janina credits Michael for caring for her.
“I like that he lets me kind of be crazy,” Janina said. “He kind of spoils me.”
They’ve already had their Valentine’s Day celebration, making both a fancy dinner and a fancy breakfast.
“The next morning I made Bananas Foster pancakes, which turned out not as good as I thought it would,” Michael said. “We sort of got drunk from the pancakes.”
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