“My first serious boyfriend was this hot, ripped Australian surfer named Ronan. We stayed close long after we broke up, and every guy I dated after him was predictably threatened by our friendship. When I needed a little ammunition to encourage my boyfriend of three years to get married, I casually mentioned that Ronan and I had one of those pacts that we’d get hitched if we were both still single at 32. It wasn’t true, but Ronan would’ve played along if I needed him to corroborate the story. My boyfriend proposed six months before I hit the magic mark.”
— Dora, 32, engaged one month
“Three years into dating, I got the wedding itch. My boyfriend, on the other hand, was a little too content with the status quo. To make him more comfortable with the idea of getting married, I told him that every five years he could sleep with someone else. I obviously didn’t mean it, which is going to pose a problem at some point down the line, but I got the job done in the meantime!”
— Martha, 26, married one month
“My approach was subtle, but genius. I’m a singer-songwriter and my boyfriend is a copywriter at an ad agency by day and a drummer by night. Since we don’t exactly rake it in, I knew my boyfriend would believe that I was planning to sell my citizenship for a few extra grand if he and I weren’t going to tie the knot. I never said anything outright, but I started leaving tabs open on my computer about the whole citizenship-for-sale process. One night we were hanging out with our lawyer friend, and I asked about all the legal risks (my cover was that I’d read an article about it recently). Six weeks later, we were at City Hall swapping long-term love contracts.”
— Marina, 28, married six months
“I was one of those bohemian, fukk ‘the Man’ types who resented the institution of marriage throughout her teens and early twenties. Then I hit 24, and something changed. Suddenly, I wanted all the things I’d spent so much time and energy rejecting. I found myself a decent dude and we started dating, but he wasn’t ‘the marrying type,’ and I couldn’t exactly blame him for it. So I promised him a threesome every six months for the rest of his life if he agreed to marry me—and just like that, he was game.”
— Carissa, 27, married eight months
— Dora, 32, engaged one month
“Three years into dating, I got the wedding itch. My boyfriend, on the other hand, was a little too content with the status quo. To make him more comfortable with the idea of getting married, I told him that every five years he could sleep with someone else. I obviously didn’t mean it, which is going to pose a problem at some point down the line, but I got the job done in the meantime!”
— Martha, 26, married one month
“My approach was subtle, but genius. I’m a singer-songwriter and my boyfriend is a copywriter at an ad agency by day and a drummer by night. Since we don’t exactly rake it in, I knew my boyfriend would believe that I was planning to sell my citizenship for a few extra grand if he and I weren’t going to tie the knot. I never said anything outright, but I started leaving tabs open on my computer about the whole citizenship-for-sale process. One night we were hanging out with our lawyer friend, and I asked about all the legal risks (my cover was that I’d read an article about it recently). Six weeks later, we were at City Hall swapping long-term love contracts.”
— Marina, 28, married six months
“I was one of those bohemian, fukk ‘the Man’ types who resented the institution of marriage throughout her teens and early twenties. Then I hit 24, and something changed. Suddenly, I wanted all the things I’d spent so much time and energy rejecting. I found myself a decent dude and we started dating, but he wasn’t ‘the marrying type,’ and I couldn’t exactly blame him for it. So I promised him a threesome every six months for the rest of his life if he agreed to marry me—and just like that, he was game.”
— Carissa, 27, married eight months
that's my simp
