For a few love-struck seniors, Commencement won't be this summer's only bell-ringing.
Debunking the myth of Harvard's dull love scene, some seniors will greet graduation with rings on their fingers and a true love by their sides.
They met on the Internet, in high school and during pre-frosh weekend. Their proposal props ranged from stuffed animals to cheesecake to umbrellas. As members of the Class of '98 go their separate ways, these seniors will travel as pairs.
Here are some of their stories.
A Natural Science
Chemistry 10: "Foundations of Chemistry" is usually a class associated with eager first-years and anal pre-meds, not swinging singles. But for Robyn A. Runft '98, Chem 10 was the opportunity to meet her future husband, Jonathan H. Liu '98.
Liu's first-year roommate was Runft's lab partner. The two got to know each other as Runft spent hours in Liu's room, pouring over data and results.
"I think it was around finals period that I started to know, started to kind of think of him in that way," she remembers.
It was Liu's roommate who arranged the couple's first outing--a black-tie opening of his play. Liu claims his roommate had no romantic intentions in mind at the time.
"He just wanted people to go to his play," he says.
But the two say a close relationship grew from there. Although they first discussed marriage in the summer before their junior year, Runft says she was still surprised by his proposal during a dinner date in October of that year.
"I didn't think he was going to propose because we had a meeting to go to that night," she says. "I thought after he asked, we'd want to call our families and everything. To go to that meeting would have been really anti-climactic."
Runft's first clue that something was up was when Liu brought roses to their table at Henrietta's Table.
"We celebrate on the 29th of every month, because we sort of started dating on January 29th," she says. "[The dinner was on] October 29th, and he brought flowers, which he does sometimes, but not terribly often."
The actual proposal came later, when the two returned from their meeting.
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