Love in the Bubble

A column on love in St Andrews

“Reader, I married him.” In my pre-university days, I spent all my spare time reading Victorian novels and gothic romances. This mythical world of Rochesters, Heathcliffs, and Darcys seemed so romantic, yet so distant. Alas, I thought, when would it be my turn to embark on an adventure in cold and Northern climes, to have a whirlwind romance in shadowed, mysterious cloisters, and ornate buildings? I did not wait long — soon, I applied to the University of St Andrews, and through some twist of fate (UCAS), I arrived in this alluring little town, ready to meet my own fated lover.

I shudder to tell you this — I found no dashing Darcys, no chivalrous heroes. Instead, I encountered overbearing divinity students and theatre kids, insufferable philosophy students (the blow is softened if it’s joint honours), and met with the horrors of halls-cest. 

My first year was packed with outlandish stories of romance. There was a man whose version of flirting was poking girls on the stomach while saying, “You’re hot — I hope no one harvests your organs.” There was one who took me to Morrisons for dinner and said, “What do you normally eat? Oh, I know! Rice!” (I’ll let you decode any implications of race or ethnicity). There were nights of drunkenly confessed feelings from male best friends — I shudder to hear the words “there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.”

That’s not to say I haven’t had my own fair share of catastrophes and slip-ups. In week three of university, the fact that a guy left a conversation with me to go to the pub with his friends reduced me to tears in my hall’s library (he saw me crying through the window — disastrous!)

Most people I know in St Andrews profess to have lost faith in members of the opposite sex. But perhaps there is one thing I have learned: we cannot control how others feel or love. We can simply do our best to focus on ourselves, and hope that we have enough self-respect and self-contentment to attract the right kind of person. In these years, we encounter several people who will change us, with whom we genuinely resonate — they are worth holding onto. It is those connections that make heartbreak and embarrassment worth it.

Illustration by Elizabeth Lang