6.14.2025

We met during our junior year of college in an East Asian Politics class, where fate (and our professor) randomly paired us for a semester-long project. The class was split into groups for a simulation on international diplomacy, and we were assigned as the two neutral parties. Jordan was Sweden and Maddie was Switzerland. Our job? Simply broker the nuclear disarmament of Russia. No pressure. After countless late nights in the library and one very dramatic pretend treaty later, we had heroically brokered a high-stakes peace deal. But it turns out that negotiating world peace was just the beginning. The nuclear weapons may have been fake, but the chemistry? Surprisingly real. Somewhere between the debates, diplomacy, and shared snacks, our partnership grew into something more, and we haven’t stopped negotiating life together since.