In honor of Valentine’s Day, the Record brings you its annual profile of a campus couple. This year, the Record interviewed Lemmy Evans ’23 and Petros Markopoulos ’23. I caught up with them to discuss how they appreciate each other’s cultures, their memories of cooking together, and their advice for fellow Ephs on Valentine’s Day. 

Bellamy Richardson (BR): You two have been together since freshman year — how did you meet? 

Lemmy Evans (LE): I remember the first time you talked to me. 

Petros Markopoulos (PM): I think we met in math class. 

LE: After math class, he came up to me and asked me how I got my hair so green. [Laughs.] He had tried to dye his hair green the previous night — in my entry. In freshman year, we had a lot of mutual friends, so for the first couple months, all we did was make eye contact and wave to each other in the Mission lobby. But I didn’t know who you were. 

PM: I strategically asked you why your hair was green. I was definitely interested in getting to know you. 

LE: But he started that and did not follow up because it was a question with a finite answer. 

PM: And then after that, I don’t know how I ended up in your entry, but I think the first conversations we had were [about] how we hate tourists. 

LE: We were talking about the similarities between Greece and Hawaii and how it gets so dark here and how we both live on islands. 

PM: I don’t live on an island. 

LE: I think at that point, I thought that Greece was only islands. 

BR: How did your friendship start to turn into a relationship? 

LE: I was the only one who did anything. I’ve asked him before if he would have ever made a move, and he said no. 

PM: We were hanging out a lot, and it was pretty obvious that we liked each other, but I didn’t really do anything, and Lemmy wasn’t sure. 

LE: No, I was sure! I just couldn’t find a moment [to tell you]. It was awkward because we would always hang out in group settings. 

PM: At some point, we ended up going to my room to [air quotes] “watch Harry Potter.” 

LE: Basically, what I said to my friends at this point was, “Okay, something is happening before winter break. If I don’t [say something] before winter break, then I’m giving up and moving on.” We were talking about what movies we like, and we talked about Harry Potter, and I was like, “Perfect, let’s watch Harry Potter together.” That’s it. That’s my in. That was the first time we hung out alone. 

PM: They came over. We started talking. We kept talking. We never watched Harry Potter. 

LE: You had it loaded already, and then we just talked the whole time. It was hilarious. We started off on the other side of the room… We continued to dance around it. I think I was like, “He’s gonna make a move now.” We slowly were getting closer and closer together, but nothing was happening. I was so pissed off. 

PM: Lemmy had a thing where they wouldn’t tell people their birthday, and then I was like, “What if I guess it?” 

LE: Did you know my birthday at that point? 

PM: No. 

LE: And I was like, “You’re not gonna guess it. That’s impossible.” 

PM: And then I guessed it, first try, and it was completely by accident. 

LE: He guessed the month and date of my birthday completely correctly. 

PM: Then we made out. I don’t know how it happened. I guess it was just my raw magnetism after guessing your birthday. 

BR: You mentioned that you went to see Lemmy over the summer in Hawaii. What was that like? 

PM: We were here [at Williams] over the summer, and in the end, we had planned to go to Hawaii together. It was fun, but the traveling was terrible because [of] COVID and because I wanted to make it fairly cheap, so we had two layovers. It was very fun. I only stayed for a week, which was terrible. The first day I wasn’t jetlagged was the day we left. We didn’t do many of the very touristy things. 

LE: I took you to Waikiki, but I didn’t take you to the most touristy places. Well, we did go to a volcano. I think that’s pretty touristy. 

PM: I will be proud of this — when we were on the volcano, I really wanted to take a rock from the ground, and I picked up a rock, and I knew it was going to be inappropriate, so I was like, “Can I take a rock?” and Lemmy said no, so I put it back down. 

LE: There’s a cultural myth where if you do that, you’ll be super cursed. 

PM: OK, I go through [Hopkins] gate multiple times a day. 

LE: He goes to [Hopkins] gate multiple times per day — the gate that’s cursed for not being able to graduate — [he’s] taking time off! I think he’s gonna somehow be like, “I’m done,” and he’s not gonna graduate from here. 

PM: I didn’t [put the rock down] because of the curse; I just didn’t want to be inappropriate and disrespect the volcano… It was actually a great experience. Culturally, I picked up a couple of things. Like, the first thing you told me when I walked into your house was, “You see that big drum? Don’t bang the big drum!” And then, I talked to your mom about the drum, and I learned about her making drums. 

LE: You picked up two things: Don’t take the rock from the volcano and don’t bang the drum. Don’t you find it hilarious that these are the things I have to tell him? It’s like he’s 5. 

BR: What is a favorite memory you have together? 

LE: In Hawaii, Petros and I cooked a big Greek meal for my parents and us. It was a lot of food that I was not very familiar with, but it was my kitchen, so I was familiar with where stuff was. It was kind of sweet. Also, we were terrible. We sucked at it. We started cooking way too late. We had something that was cooking for three hours, and we started cooking at 8 [p.m.], so we ate at 11 [p.m.]. My parents were fine with it because they’re sweet. 

PM: This is what I was going to say if it wasn’t for that — when we made ramen for the entire AP side of Mission. 

LE: We were co-Housing Coordinators over the summer. 

PM: We did a ramen night where we cooked for half the building… It was incredible. But I’m gonna switch it. I’m gonna say, over the summer, we went to Boston, and we came back, and I was sick, and Lemmy took really good care of me. They would take time off work and sit with me. It was pretty cute. 

LE: Over the summer, a cold was going around, and he had a really long fever, and I think he was dehydrated. I took a day off of work, and we just sat in bed together and changed his ice packs on his forehead and monitored his temperature. I can’t believe that was a great memory. Like, “I’m in physical pain, but I love it.” 

BR: What is a piece of advice that you would like to share with your fellow Ephs for this Valentine’s Day? 

LE: Single beds are too small for two people to sleep in. Our first Valentine’s Day, I convinced him to sleep over, and I did not sleep that entire night, and I slept through the entire rest of Valentine’s Day. 

PM: Specifically for Valentine’s Day — make a move! Going back to what I said earlier, I wouldn’t have made a move if Lemmy hadn’t, and it would have been very unfortunate because this has been quite fun and quite great. Going for it is good. 

LE: The way I see it is, if they don’t like you, they already know. They’re not going to change their mind. So just figure it out and keep going. 

PM: Now you can talk about the Valentine’s Day gift. 

LE: The first present Petros ever got me — you do it. 

PM: There is this scene in Spongebob where they get a TV to get the giant box [it comes in], and one line is “I didn’t have any money to get you a present, so I got you this box.” And at the time, I was overly broke. I had negative something dollars in my bank account because I had just come from a dead week trip that I shouldn’t have engaged in. So I printed out a photo of that scene in Spongebob and put it in the bottom of a box. I woke Lemmy up super early in the morning to give them the gift. They didn’t react. They just took it and left. 

LE: I was really tired! Imagine this from my perspective. We just slept over. He wakes you up early in the morning and hands you this box, and at the bottom of it, it’s this — black and white, not even in color — meme that says, “I didn’t have any money to get you a present, so I got you this box.” That being said, though, I treasure it, and I have that box, and I carry it with me. It’s where I put my essential stuff — the stuff that keeps me comfortable… But Valentine’s Day — definitely just make a move. Life is short. College is shorter. 

PM: And you only have a one in 365 chance of guessing someone’s birthday, so don’t count on that.