The New Yorker Radio Hour - Forget Dating Apps—the “Marriage Pact” Goes for the Long Haul

Episode Date: June 21, 2022

A survey that started as a student project at Stanford University has become a popular dating and relationship tool on campuses across the country. Its goal is to delve deeper than the superficial information found on a typical dating-app profile, connecting people based on deeply held values rather than looks or sports teams.  Most apps, says Liam MacGregor, who created the Marriage Pact with a fellow-student, “were designed to solve really specific problems … if you want a short-term relationship. But because they’re the only tools out there, people have tried to use them to solve these other problems.”  The Marriage Pact “set out to solve this very specific problem at the beginning: If you need a backup plan for a 50-year-long relationship, who’s right for that?” Would you put an elderly relative in a nursing home? Do you keep people as friends because they might be useful to you later? Would you keep a gun in the house? More than 250,000 students across more than 75 campuses have taken the survey. The Radio Hour’s producer KalaLea talked to students at Princeton University, where the survey was being conducted, to find out what it was all about. Plus, perched high above the ice at Madison Square Garden, the organist Ray Castoldi has conducted the soundtrack of Rangers games and more for thirty years. New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. It's June, and that means that a lot of us are attending some weddings, maybe even having a wedding. Still, the rate of marriage remains at historic lows, and the median age for marrying continues to rise. That can cause some real anxiety, both for sociologists and for single people who might like to settle down. The Radio Hours, Cala Leah, has been looking at a project to alleviate some of that anxiety. It came out of an economics class in Stanford University, and is called The Marriage Pact. Hi, I'm Katie. And I'm Miguel.

Katie and Miguel are the same age, 23. And I am just under a month older. Yeah, I'm also 23. Yeah, we're the same stars are, and if that likes a difference. Pisces, I think. Yeah, we're both Pisces. Katie and Miguel met while in. college around Valentine's Day, just about a year and a half ago. But they've done a whole lot

together in a short amount of time. We went hiking and camping in Acadia, Maine. That was our first big trip. That was our first trip that we took together. New Hampshire. We went to New Hampshire skiing. We've been to New York City twice. Yeah, that was so fun because we wanted to go and we did it. It was great. It was a great day. We went to Florida to visit her parents. We went to Costa Rica. And we went to Ireland. And then we went to for, it was actually right around our anniversary. Just to see a soccer game.

And that was like seven, eight days of traveling together and being together. And we got a rental car in Ireland driving on the other side of the road. That was wild. It's clear there, love, or deep, deep like. Yeah, he's my boyfriend, best friend, and hopefully going to be my life partner. 100% she is my best friend um she is my life partner and my travel partner when people ask you how did you guys meet what do you say i am usually a little bit um embarrassed to answer this question so i usually would say oh we met like in an online dating survey and whenever i tell people that it's called

the marriage pact because that's a big that's a big um it's a big word yeah i'm not embarrassed by it, but it's definitely like a little bit of a quirky way, I think, to have that. Yeah. Wild is happening at my college, and I'm here to give you all the tea about it. The marriage pact first came to my attention a couple of years ago. One afternoon, I noticed a message similar to this TikTok post. Marriage pact. So what this is is you, like, take a survey about yourself that's like 50 questions or something

that's almost like a dating profile. And then they match you with someone who's supposed to be the person you make a marriage packed with, like if we're not with someone by the time we're 45, we're so compatible that we should get married. And there has been some, like, good PR for this. I'll give them that. But the wild thing... I once made a pact with a good friend long, long ago. I'm sure you've made such a pact. He and I agree that if we're still single at the age of 40, then we would get together. He probably didn't take it seriously. But I remember finding comfort in knowing that there be someone I bonded with who was willing to be with me as I grew old and crusty. But this marriage pact, it's a lot

bigger, more public, more organized. My name is Liam McGregor, and I started the marriage pact. When we sort of looked at the original marriage pact, we looked at it and said, okay, you know, you might make a marriage pact with your best friend. But like, what are the odds that your best friend is actually the best person for you to make a marriage pact with? In 2017, Liam and a classmate designed their own version of a Marriage Pack survey for an economics class. This survey is done at colleges as a campus-wide event. It happens over the course of one week and is promoted mostly by word of mouth. A friend of Katie's convinced her to give it a try.

She's like, oh, you should definitely do this. I was intrigued. I was when I was filling out the form very nervous. It does feel very intense when they're asking you your political view. and they're asking you your views on relationships. It does help you, like, you know, get through some of that. Are we, like, do we actually get along? Do we have, like, similar views?

I remember I was like, wow, that's, like, a really good question. The Marriage Pack boasts that almost 30% of their matches actually meet up in person compared to just one to two percent in traditional dating apps. And of those who meet up, one and eight date for one year or longer, like Katie and Miguel. Like I tried Tinder and I tried Bumble and all those other things, but I don't know, I realized I wasn't good at that kind of online dating. I didn't go in with like, I'm going to marry whoever my marriage pact is, but I was like, well, it would be kind of nice to get to know someone, like, you know, and to see if we're actually compatible. The marriage pack was launched nearly five years ago at Stanford University.

And since then, a small team of former undergraduates have released custom. surveys at more than 75 universities and colleges. And they say that more than a quarter of a million students have participated thus far. I was very much more enthusiastic about doing it than I probably would have been if it weren't for the pandemic and if it weren't for that feeling of isolation. And honestly, loneliness that I had been feeling like since March of 2020 when I got sent home from school. Yeah. Using technology to find dates is nothing new. A computer program matching couples launched in 1965.

And in the 80s, when divorce rates were increasing and VCRs were in many households, video dating companies sprang up. No more print ads or blind dates. Single people paid these companies hard-earned cash just to find the new love of their life. Hi, I'm Maurice. I'm an executive by day and a wild man by night. I'm looking for the goddess. Are you the goddess?

Hi, my name's Mike, and if you're sitting there watching this tape smoking your cigarette, well, hit the fast forward button because I don't smoke and I don't like people who do smoke. When my favorite foods is pizza. And just sugar and spice and all those things that are nice. I'm not afraid to get sand on my tuxedo if you're not afraid to let the wind mess your hair up a little bit when I take the top down.

And I do consider myself a refined valley dude Who is the goddess? The goddess is the woman, is a woman, is any woman, is all women. I like an attractive woman, someone who might look like Christy Brinkley or Jacqueline Smith, particularly attracted to black women and women of different races. So if you like me, give me a call. I decided that I'm lonely. But I'd love to go roller skating.

At the start of the internet boom, there was Match.com. Grindr launched in 2009, Marriage Pacted. in 2017. Now personally, I consider myself an expert in old-fashioned matchmaking. I've introduced at least two of my friends to their current spouses. So late in the school year, I took the New Jersey transit to Princeton University, where the marriage pack was taking place over the course of one week. Maddie, it's short for Madison, is a sophomore at Princeton.

How are you today? I'm good. How are you? Good, I'm good. I thank you for coming. We walk around until reaching one of the many huge tents set up on the edge of campus. Oh, this is good, too. Yeah, this is also good.

Yeah, because I feel like everything just got really quiet. Maddie sits on a stack of wood pallets and opens her laptop. This morning, an email went out to all of the Marriage Pack participants. Maddie reads it to me. Um, look around. College is the best place to meet The One. but we're not going to be here forever. The Prince of Marriage Pact is here to give you the perfect backup plan.

Take our questionnaire and we'll find your best match on campus. We can't promise you a match made in heaven, but we can promise a match made via groundbreaking algorithms and a little linear algebra. Swoon. If someone better comes along in your 20s, more power to you. We hope you don't need us, but better safe than sorry. And then it says that the responses are confidential.

Some of Maddie's friends arrive and they get started. The first few questions are related to identity. So like gender identity and sexual orientation. Each question is rated on a scale from one to seven. One meaning strongly disagree and seven strongly agree. The questions appear on the screen one at a time. The next question is I like drama. No.

Questions that seem pretty straightforward to who you'd like to go on a date with. I would send back a dish at a restaurant. I said almost never. I generally like to take control during sex. It's the next question. You're nodding. I think that's an important question. If you guys have competing ideas of what's going to happen,

if you do get intimate, then like, I don't know, I think that's important. And then the questions get less obvious and kind of hard. I'm looking at I would send old. the relatives to a nursing home. And I think that's a tough one. No, I would. I don't know if I would. I don't think I would.

I keep some friends here at Princeton because they will be useful to me in the future. That's a good question, especially for people here, I think. Everything will be explained by science. I'd say like a... I'm not a religious person, so I'd say like probably like a five. That's what I put. Yeah. I consider myself to be an adult.

After Maddie and her friends leave, I keep thinking about one of the questions, I would keep a gun in the house. Yeah, so this one I feel like I have more conviction. I'm strongly disagree. That's Elizabeth Gerson, who leads operations for the marriage pact. She works closely with Liam McGregor, the founder of the pact. Here's Liam again. It's interesting because we really set out to solve this very,

specific problem at the beginning, which was if you need a backup plan for a 50-year-long relationship, who's right for that? And it turns out that a lot of the things that we look for, typically, when we look for people to go on first dates with, are really not what matters in the long run, right? You know, it doesn't matter if someone's 5-11 or 6 feet tall if you're going to spend 50 years with them, right? And really what matters often, are these deeply held values and convictions and beliefs in a strong sense of self that you could never, I mean, personally write down on a profile, let alone, you know, have someone else evaluate. And often there are private things maybe that, you know, do matter for long-term relationships

that you might not want to advertise, right? So, I mean, like, maybe having a gun in the house is something that you're interested in, but, you know, that you don't want that to be, like, very first impression of someone or have that be someone's first impression of you. So on the Marriage Pack website, there's a, the first paragraph starts off. It says the tools that were meant to bring us together have failed. And then it goes on to say, in fact, existing social tools, broadly speaking, actively make things worse for us. Can one of you elaborate on this? If you want a short-term relationship. There's really nothing better. There's no more efficient marketplace than the dating apps that are out there today. They're really excellent for solving that thing. But the thing is,

because they're the only tools out there, people have tried to use them to solve these other problems as well. They're not exactly the only tools. But what's interesting to me is that the Marriage Pact is betting on a way of relating that is long term for a generation of people who essentially being programmed, if you will, to think short-term. As a student who was taking it for the first time, it was so refreshing to be given the opportunity where you're not actually filling out a profile, where you genuinely are sitting down for 10, 15, 20 minutes and interrogating basically your deeply held values yourself.

I think another interesting thing is that even though the Marriage Pact has a very serious word and its title. Like you mentioned, Kalalia, it's not always that serious, right? When you're making a backup plan, it's about taking the pressure off of some big institution, some major life decision that maybe you're not ready to make yet. And so I think what you've found is that marriage pact exists in this sort of liminal space between commitment and non-commitment. I thought back to something Maddie had told me. That really surprised me. She was so excited about taking the marriage pact, even though she's already in a committed relationship with someone who doesn't go to Princeton. She was hoping to make friends because on this campus filled with thousands of interesting people

her age, she often feels lonely. Some of the most lonely times for me have been, like recently, I would say. This past Friday and Saturday, it was like one of the first times that I had called my mom and was like, hey, I feel lonely, you know? You literally said that?

Yeah. Well, I called her and we were just talking and then I texted her and I was like, hey, just like, I just called you because I like was lonely and like, because my team had gone to Ivy's so none of them were on campus and those are the people that I would usually hang out with.

So I was kind of just like sitting in one of the upperclassmen's apartments by myself. My boyfriend wasn't there. My other friends weren't there. It was kind of just like, oh, like everyone's doing something fun or like spontaneous. And I'm like sitting home by myself watching TikTok. Is there anything particularly your mom said that made you feel better? Probably just that she was proud of me and how well I was doing

Yeah and then the next I guess who was the next day She and my sister actually came and Like surprised me Just to like be like we're here for you We're always supporting you So It felt really good

Honestly After listening to Maddie My Mai wandered back to five years ago when public health officials began to warn Americans about the consequences of being so very disconnected. Former Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murth-Morthy tackled a range of public health crises. They included issues like Zika, drug and alcohol addiction, and obesity. But he also shed light on a silent crisis, the rising number of lonely people in America. It's easy to blame social media or the Internet.

But for decades, political scientists like Robert Putnam, for example, called attention to the erosion of civic engagement and the loss of collective activities for Americans that's been going on really since the 1950s. He calls it the Bowling Alone Syndrome. You can't go to a bowling league by yourself and let other people go. That's what it means to be a league. And that's a fundamental, deep fundamental point here.

This problem with social capital is something that you can't produce entirely by yourself. but we've got to do it together. And so part of what I'm trying to do, and other people, obviously there are a lot of other people talking about the loss of community in America, part of what we're trying to do is to say loudly, look, we all feel this way. Why don't we just get together more often?

I definitely heard a lot of talk about, like, being lonely and having these lulls and there's, you know, these kind of gaps in the pandemic bringing on a certain amount of loneliness that I think we're seeing all over the country, actually. So what have you learned about like the epidemic of loneliness? Wow, that's a big question. I think maybe I'll share a little statistic and then I think Liz probably has a much better perspective on this. So I'd love to hear what she has to say.

Go for it. 10 to 20% of the people who participate in the marriage pact are already in long-term committed relationships. And that kind of surprised me on the one hand. But on the other hand, if you've been through the marriage pact in any community, it's kind of obvious because it is such an intensely social experience. The first time I ever experienced it was intensely social. I think that the colleges today that have marriage packed experience it in an intensely social way, especially after something like COVID with what we've seen in terms of young people feeling very well connected to maybe who they are online, but in real life,

I think experiencing a lot of difficulty in terms of feeling connected to a community. Most dating experiences today happen in a very siloed environment where it's something that you do on your own. And maybe at some point you tell your friends about a date you had or you show them a screenshot of a crazy profile that you saw. But it's not really an activity that you can't wait to do with your friends. And I think what we've seen is that marriage pact wouldn't be complete unless you were doing it with your friends. and the majority of reason why people sign up is because all my friends are doing it. Marriage Pact is an algorithm created to help students meet their individual needs. But the innovativeness doesn't come from computer programming.

It's the way they enhance the matchmaking experience. From a solo affair to a public event, it's a communal experience. One thing that Liam and I talk about a lot is why shouldn't Marriage Pact be an enduring tradition at every college community in the country? It's been so meaningful to us at Stanford and to the schools that we've been to so far. I think there are three kinds of meaningful relationships. We really hope we may serve one day. One of them is obviously your romantic relationships, right? Also your friendships, right?

Your meaningful friendships, your close friends, right? What are the things that you do with them and how do those friendships add meaning to your life? And then finally, I think one last relationship that we often forget about, which is our relationship with ourselves. You know, I think there's a piece of marriage pact that has to do with understanding yourself. I think that if we could use technology to help, you know, serve those kinds of meaningful relationships that would mean the world to us. That's Liam McGregor of the Marriage Pact, which he co-founded with a classmate, Sophia Sterling Angus. He spoke with Kalalia, who's a producer for the New Yorker Radio Hour.

When the marriage pack concluded at Princeton, Kalalia called up the student she met with, named Maddie. Good. How are you, Maddie? They actually released the matches during what we call here breakfast for dinner. So they like served dinner in the dining halls from 10 to 11. At least in the dining hall that I was in, everybody was talking about it. My match, we were actually in the 98.47 percentile of all possible matches. 98.4.

Yeah. That's pretty high. Yeah, yeah. She said, Hi, full disclosure, I'm in a relationship, and I participated in the marriage pack thing because I mostly wanted to find a like-minded person I could build a friendship with.

I was like, wow. Well, this marriage pack thing actually really works because I'm the same exact situation. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. Stick around. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remy. Okay, now picture this, Madison Square Garden, the world's greatest arena.

The stands are packed. It's a sellout crowd, 20,000 people. And on the ice, the New York Rangers are valiantly looking to close out the season on what they hope will be a high note. Suddenly, there's a breakaway. The Rangers, Frank Vitrano, zooms down the ice. It's just him and the opposing Goldie, and he shoots, and the home crowd groans. In that moment of frustration and true grief, Ray Costello,

comes to the rescue. Castaldi is the organist at Madison Square Garden, and his music direction has everything to do with whether you're sitting in your seat or standing up and screaming your lungs out. With the Rangers now out of contention for the Stanley Cup, Castaldi gets to take some time off. We paid him a visit recently, just as the Rangers were closing out their season. I'm Ray Castoldi. I'm the music director for the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden. So we're up here on the 10th floor of Madison Square Garden, really the 11th floor, because there's one more little stairwell to get up here. And we are right up by the ceiling, right up by the Ranger banners.

They're hanging in front of us. You really can't get any higher and be inside the building. And we're up on this ledge, and we've got the organ here and some DJ equipment and electronic gear. And we're looking out over the ice. Oh, that was kind of cool. As if on cue, the music starts up. 1989, different world. I was doing music in nightclubs,

and I heard about the garden from a friend of mine. He's like, you know, they were auditioning someone to play the organ. They want to bring the organ back. They need someone who can pick records too and mix records, as well as play the organ. And I was like, okay, I'll give that a shot. And, you know, I figured I'd do it for a year. Nice to him.

I really like my job is to kind of line up the energy of the fans and get them all going in the same direction and, you know, maybe get them going to a higher level than they would do on their own. We're not going to be very happy here. Kind of like the biggest fan, right, the biggest cheerleader, right? I'm the fan that has all the loud equipment to make noise in the arena. All right. Let's keep it up, rumor.

Don't be afraid now to go for the heavy hitters. You try to keep the energy up and keep driving them. You'll hear that over the headset. Let's keep driving them. Let's keep driving them. One of the very unique things about playing at hockey games is that you can't make any sounds, any music or organ or anything, while the guys are actually skating and playing hockey.

And that's mostly due to safety. You know, it's a collision sport. The guys are going really fast at each other, and they need to hear what's going on around them for their own safety. We're just playing very physical. It's good. But unlike other sports where you can jump in anytime you like when you feel like there's a good moment at hockey, you can't.

You've got to wait. And you might be five seconds or it might be three or four minutes. All right, remember, let's see where we're at here. Let's see where the next wrestle lands us. And, you know, you can go through a whole world of emotions in four minutes. So it's challenging that way, but fun. In the NBA, a lot of the buildings use recorded organ sounds. And, you know, some baseball teams do and some hockey teams do as well.

you know, it's, they do what they do, but emotionally they're always the same. It's a recording, so it can't be, it's not going to be any different in the first period than in overtime. When you want a little bit more urgency and a little bit more emotion behind it, it's still a recording, so it's not going to do that. But there are places that use recordings, so it's live, folks. I got it here. For me, it's just like really fun to look at, you know, the people that have played the organ at these sporting events in New York and wherever, you know, down through the, the years. Even things like just the phrasing and the pacing of things, you know, it's this kind of like a sort of like a tradition and a lot of the stuff is definitely like handed down and passed along.

My favorite moment is when the Rangers score and they're singing along to the goal song and all these people are just thrilled. It's just wonderful. It sounds cliche, but I do have to pinch myself, especially when we get to, you know, a postseason tournament where you know how much much people want to come to these games and want to be part of it, want to be a part of the energy. And I just get to walk right in and get my seat right up here over the ice. And, you know, kind of contribute to the madness a little bit, too. You'll hear me yelling at the team, like an idiot upstairs, you know, wanting them to score and, you know, shoot the puck and everything else. What the fuck? Jesus.

If you love sports and you love music, this is where you want to be. This is the job you want to have. That's Ray Kostaldi, the musical director at Madison Square. Gargarten. Condolences to Ray and all other Ranger fans out there. As the Dodgers used to say, there's always next year. And for us, there's always next week. I'm David Remnick. Thanks for listening to The New Yorker Radio Hour. See you next time. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garvis of Tune Yards, with additional music by Alexis Quadrato and Louis Mitchell. This episode was produced by Alex

Barron, Emily Boutin, Ave Carrillo, Breda Green, Calilea, David Krasnow, Louis Mitchell, and Gophane and Gopouléh, with help from Alison McAdam, David Gable, Harrison Keithline, Alex Barish, Victor Gwan, and Monfei Chin. We had additional help this week from Zach Helfend, Amy Pearl, and Michael May. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund.