Traditional dating rules no longer apply – with freshers’ weeks underway across the country, here’s what really goes on at university
8:25AM BST 08 Sep 2014
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Just when you think you’ve learnt the laws of dating, they go and change every last rule in the book. Teenagers today have grown up in a culture where television sitcoms dissect the “third date rule” and pop songs talk of true love. But as university students navigate the mayhem of freshers’ week, they can give up on waiting for their first date of the term.
Dating, boyfriends and exes have followed “courtship” to become quaint relics of the past. Instead, get used to a world where couples “see each other”, exes “have a history” and casual dating means “we have a thing”.
Welcome to university…
What are the rules of dating at university?
‘No strings attached’
It’s no secret that students have a lot of sex. There are no early-morning starts, plenty of opportunities for drunken liaisons, and hundreds of possible partners - all of whom spend their days reading, snacking on toast and hanging out in groups for hours on end. Traditional concerns about when to have sex and with whom aren’t completely absent from campus but are treated as curious and unnecessary constraints on a good time.
Leeroy, who’s about to start his third year at Manchester University, says a relaxed attitude towards sex is standard, and he’s slept with six women and kissed another “40 or 50” since starting university. But in keeping with the collegiate atmosphere, his partners aren’t unfamiliar one night stands but friends who he sees regularly at parties. For a while, Leeroy had sex every day with a student living on the floor below him in halls – “we’re still friends now”, he says.
And in two years of studying at Manchester University, Leeroy’s only been on one date, which he says was “really awkward”. “She was not my type at all but I just went along with it and pretended I was into One Direction and was a Christian. She invited me to her flat and we slept together. I never asked her out again,” he adds.
Leeroy may sound like the kind of callous lothario that worried fathers warn their daughters against, but the English literature student insists that no one was hurt. After all, he says, “it’s not like she asked me out again either” – and the pair still chat whenever they see each other around campus.
Traditionalists may squirm, but Leeroy’s experience is typical of students across the country. Formal dating is now a rarity, with many students unlikely to go on one date as a way to get to know a potential love interest. Instead, students have plenty of free time to socialise in groups, and so friendship, sex and romance blend together.
Leeroy is a fan of the social set up. Apart from the time he caught two STDs - chlamydia and gonorrhoea at the same time - and one instance with a girl who bit his lip until it was swollen, he says he has no regrets about his sex life. Forget worries about third-date sex or anxious chat up lines – university students have thrown structure out the window in their hunt for love and sex. But while dating is a rarity, university romances are as complicated as ever.
Plenty of students have casual relationships throughout university
‘Seeing each other’: romance without a label
Although sex may be more common than love at university, there’s still a peculiar form of romance on campus. In between sleeping together and becoming an official couple lies a gulf of misunderstanding, emotions and varying degrees of intimacy. Many students loiter in this no-man’s-land for much of their studies.
Rachel, 21, is midway through her graphic design course at University of the Arts London and has had her fair share of casual sex – around 15 partners over the past three years. “I’ve always had buddies, you know friends where I’m not going out with them but if I call in the middle of the night, they’ll come over,” she says.
Apart from three one-night stands that she says she didn’t enjoy, all Rachel’s sexual partners are part of her friend group. Messy social circles are the backdrop to romance at university, and as students live at each others’ houses and spend their many hours of free time in groups, some relationships inevitably become closer than others.
“I had secret relationships and friendships which were really cute. Everybody would go to bed and then one friend would come back and then we’d go out. Nobody realised that we were better friends than they thought,” she says.
Many students sign up for a “friends with benefits” format and claim that they love it. All the sex and none of the restrictions of a relationship certainly works well for some students and the liberation of no rules can help teenagers discover what they really want in a partner. But the emphasis on casual relationships means that those who want something more intimate can have to hide their emotions.
Although Rachel had “secret dates” with one friend for three or four months, they never considered each other boyfriend and girlfriend. She says he “freaked out” once he realised that Rachel might want a relationship, not just a sexual partner and sent her a text saying, “I love you as a friend but I just want to call this off”.
But because they were never in a formal relationship, Rachel says she couldn’t admit that she was hurt. “At university you have to realise that unless they ask you out then it’s not official and you can’t ever get upset, which is quite hard,” she says.
Even taking a selfie together doesn't guarantee you're officially a couple
Why ‘real relationships’ are very intense
Serious relationships are unusual at university, but they’re not unheard of. Recent York University graduate, 22-year-old Jo Barrow, had two serious relationships throughout her thre-year degree.
Neither relationship began with a date, she says, as students spend so much time together that there’s impetus to ask someone out. “I think we had our first date six months after our relationship started,” she says. “We went to a Thai restaurant and it was really nice but we could have just stayed in and watched a film.”
For most of her time at university, Jo didn’t take part in the casual stream of hook-ups and casual sex, but she would still chat with her flatmates about the latest development around the kitchen table.
Watching the university dating scene from the outside, Jo says that many of her friends pretend to be less emotionally attached than they really felt. “When lots of people do sleep with and fall for their friends, then in order to maintain that delicate eco system you have to put on a front because you can’t be crying all over the place and you can’t be splitting up social groups,” she says.
But once a couple finally decide to make the leap from “seeing each other” to formalising their relationship, Jo says that many couples end up spending all their time together and developing very intense romances. “For Valentine’s day, one friend’s boyfriend created a series of clues that were hidden around the city of York. They led her all the way up to this amazing meal and hotel,” she says.
Many of the freshers starting at university this week will find the “no-dating” scene to be confusing and even frustrating. Sex without dates or labels can leave plenty of room for mixed messages and broken hearts, and students can expect to see a few drunken tears behind the free-spirited bravado. But the rules of romance have never been clear – that won’t stop university students from finding love.
Some students will find love at university
