LIFESTYLE - How Has Student Dating Changed During Lockdown?
Dating, hooking up, and starting relationships is as common as accidentally missing that 9am lecture for university students. With so many new faces and friends to make it’s no surprise that 20% of students meet the love of their lives on campus. So, we have to ask the question: what’s happened to our dating lives now we’re in (what feels like eternal) lockdown?
I spoke to various students in different stages of dating, from single to long-term committed, to dating apps and meeting ‘the one’ through all of this, and I’ve found out what’s changed in dating at university.
Unfortunately, having spoken to some students, it seems like the pandemic has encouraged some issues to arise in their relationships. I asked whether they thought the issues were caused by the lockdown. In summary, yes.
The general response was that issues that may not have been addressed or visible became so when all the social activities of university were taken away and students were either forced to move home and adapt to long distance or spend more contact time in the relationship than ever before.
“I think the issues were always there, coronavirus just made them clearer sooner rather than later”, one student told me.
The social side of university makes relationships look easier but when you’re forced to make stronger commitments, it seems like cracks begin to show.
“At home your lifestyles are so different”
But at university there’s so much mutuality that you can look past these differences.
“Since moving home we realised we don’t have that much in common past our social lives”, one student, Jacob, said.
Other students who had been through a pandemic breakdown seemed to experience this too.
What became the most apparent during my interviews with university students was that the main way dating has changed is that where you might meet someone at a socials night out or a pre drinks is no longer possible. But this doesn’t appear to have stopped dating as almost all the students I interviewed implied, it has just had to move onto a different platform. Students have always been quick to adapt to change and it’s something we’re very used to, and this is an example of our ability to make do with the best that we have.
However, for some students, lockdown has had the opposite affect and couples who have met during the lockdown or who have had to distance because of it feel this has urged their desire to move in with each other and take the next step.
Speaking to a couple who met and started dating in the first year of university, who are now both doing their masters, they both said that the lockdown has made them feel that they are “missing out on being a part of each other’s lives” and plan to buy a house as soon as possible.
“We don’t want to waste any more time not being together.”
It seems like the casualness and convenience of dating that was possible with such an intense social life university gives us, is no longer an option for most.
“You either decide to isolate together and immediately begin a relationship or you don’t see that person at all”, a student told me.
However, this doesn’t appear as impulsive as you might think. Many students I spoke to feel this pandemic has given them time to think about what they really want.
As we’ve already established, students have been forced to move from meeting in social environments to meeting through social media.
I ask every student who has confirmed their use of dating apps , and the answer is nearly always the same: “Because I’m bored” or “For a self-esteem boost.”
Speaking to an undergraduate teacher who met her boyfriend on Hinge, an online dating app, she tells me to have an “open mind” when using dating apps and to not focus on the photos but the traits that you like and the way they communicate with you.
Saskia, in her final year of Business agrees with this, despite having to “sift through some real f*ckboys at first.”
“Make your intentions clear, even by opening the conversation with saying you want something serious. If they’re put off then it would never have worked anyway.”
At the other end of the spectrum, there seems to be a view that dating right now is impossible and, while the lockdown made a lot of people realise what they wanted, it also made them realise what they didn’t want.
“I just want to use this time to focus on myself and establishing a career, getting into a relationship right now requires more effort than it did before and I know that I don’t want that”, James, a Geography student who became single in May said.
Clearly dating has change for everyone and we’ve had to adapt and adhere to living in a world where building virtual relationships is something we have to get used to. However, it doesn’t seem to be all bad.
Advice from the students I interviewed can be summarised like this: make as much effort as you would in person and value any opportunity you get to have a phone call or go on a walk. Overall, dating appears to have become more meaningful and a real positive to hold on to through all of this.
Hannah Ireland is a postgraduate student at QUB studying Environmental Engineering.