Mary first met Jordan at Columbia's MFA Writing program when they were both in Patty O'Toole's "Thickening the Plot" seminar, Fall 2013. Jordan tended to sit at the center of the room, next to the teacher, and Mary thought of him as a brown-noser before even knowing his last name was Browne. Meanwhile, Jordan has no memory of Mary from this class because she frequently showed up late or skipped altogether. A year and a half later, in 2015, Jordan met Mary. Mary was going through a breakup and needed to sell her now ex-boyfriend's ticket to PAX East (a gaming convention in Boston). Jordan bought the ticket through his and Mary's mutual friend Matt Shafeek. On the first morning of PAX, as Mary, Jordan, and Matt walked from the hotel to the convention center, Jordan impressed Mary with tales of how he had strategically secured a Fulbright Scholarship to Montenegro—with tactics like learning just enough Montenegrin to get through the interview process. When they played their first board game, Battlestar Galactica, Mary impressed (and confused) Jordan by betraying her team and aligning with the Cylons—all because it was more fun to play as the traitor. In hindsight, they knew then and there that they were a match. [To keep reading, you'll need to purchase Mary's memoir, coming to bookshelves near you in 2025.]

Last September, toward the end of their vacation in Italy, Jordan wanted to take Mary to some of his favorite places from his Fulbright year in Montenegro. He brought her to the coastal city of Kotor, and though tired from climbing the many steps of the Duomo and St. Peter's Basilica, Mary agreed to hike up Kotor's Old Town City Walls: a twisting path of narrow, crumbling stairs built into the side of a mountain. When they reached the top, after passing numerous stray dogs and cats, the sun was just starting to set. Jordan got down on one knee and said that his year in Montenegro had been a very hard year, and a big part of that was because, since they'd first met (date of meeting still up for debate), that was the only year Mary hadn't been in Jordan's life. They agreed then and there that they wouldn’t be apart again.