Lauren Lockett and Jordan Miller went from Stanford friends to something more — but when she was ready to define the relationship, he wasn’t. Time apart brought them back together.
Lauren Christine Lockett sent Jordan Alexander Miller a text seeking clarity about their relationship on a Friday night in October 2022. They had lost touch during the last five years, but after reconnecting over several months, Ms. Lockett decided to initiate the “define the relationship” conversation, again.
“Talking to him at brunch, then at a dinner and the text conversations we had, I knew that he had matured in a lot of ways,” said Ms. Lockett, 29, who lived in San Francisco.
When Mr. Miller, who was living in Michigan at the time, received the text it was closer to midnight. He wanted things to go differently than the first time they talked about their relationship in October 2017.
“I lived with a lot of regret over the last like four or five years,” said Mr. Miller, 32. He took the weekend to draft a response but made the decision not to shy away from his feelings this time.
The two met in the fall of 2013 at Stanford, where she was a freshman studying history and he was a junior majoring in mechanical engineering. During new-student orientation, Mr. Miller welcomed her to the Ujamaa dorm, a student residency hall dedicated to the history and cultures of the African diaspora. Sparks didn’t immediately fly, but Ms. Lockett took note of the friendly “cute upperclassman,” she said.
They saw each other occasionally on campus, but they had their first real conversation at an Easter brunch event in 2017. They spoke about their shared love of sports and having big families back home. Mr. Miller is from Kansas City, Mo., and Ms. Lockett is a Houston native.
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