Love in the Bubble — Issue 285

It’s a cold November day, and I’m sitting wracking my brain for a novel tale from my romantic history. Despite there being many stories I could tell, the fear of my identity being exposed prevents me from keeping the setting close to home. What’s more, St Andrews can, at times, feel like a sea of situationships. It turns out that charming, funny, international women have huge fears of commitment. This can quickly become a cycle, and while committed relationships have their charm here, they’re few and far between.

But, there is a solution to the claustrophobia of dating in this complicated, entangled town: summer, with all its carefree possibilities. During this time, as a student so close to the continent, you’re likely to venture across for respite from the still fairly frigid Scottish summer. And that’s where you see them: across the dancefloor of a rundown club or with a cigarette and coffee at a Parisian cafe — there stands your summer fling.

The romantic potential of this person is boundless. You’re never going to know a huge amount about them, apart from perhaps the hostel they’re staying at, what they get up to in the city, and the fact that they definitely want to make out with you. Plus, points if they’re a local and you can play into your fantasy of cultural integration. What’s more, you feel invincible — legs finally set free from winter trousers, a mounting bracelet collection, and a flash of sunburn and freckles ripe on your face. It’s you, but free of the burdens of university life, unattached, and enigmatic.

Cue walks by whichever beautiful European riverfront your destination offers, supermarket trips boggled by a language which confuses you, a midnight kiss outside a ramshackle bar, and the inevitable slightly tearful goodbye at the train station or before boarding a cruddy FlixBus. On the long journey home, and even back in the Main Library, you’ll think of her from time to time. What does she eat for breakfast? What music does she listen to on the way to class? If she were here, what would she order at Northpoint? What would she think of the 601? She’s too far away now to know. Just as you remain a sunkissed summer snapshot in her mind, she’s still there, standing on the platform of a continental train station, saying goodbye to you.

I couldn’t stop wondering about my summer lover, so, in October, we agreed to see each other without the idealising summer sheen. Hers was a pretty well-heeled university down south, with plenty of romantic charm. Her skin was a little paler, a baggy jumper replacing the vest top which had framed her slender, tanned shoulders. In her university room, mugs were strewn across the desk. There was less time for lying around loving and more panicked deadline-meeting for us both. The summer sun was traded in for chilly walks in Autumn sweaters and dinner dates, playfully imagining how we would fare as a real couple. It was less glamorous, but it was real.

I bade goodbye again the Monday morning with a strange ambivalence as I threw my bags in the back of the taxi. Where in the world we’ll meet again, or if we ever will, remains a mystery. But unlike a ‘real’ relationship with a clear timeline, we’ll remain reliably, but distantly, in contact. She’ll read my articles in The Saint, send an encouraging comment, and I’ll see her when I see her. Maybe next summer, maybe in ten years, or maybe never again, immortalised in a digicam picture or a postcard home.

Illustration by Elizabeth Lang