You don’t have to spend much time on Camfess (though trust me, I do) to know that Cambridge students are frustrated with dating. Just today, I logged on to see #Camfession44170: “Love life so barren that the only thrill I get is when Camfess thanks me for my submission.” Cynics will say such users should spend less time on Facebook and more time meeting people. But surely there’s more to it than that? To uncover the root of Cambridge’s dating woes, I spoke to the students spending their precious free time helping Cantabridgians find love.
One such Cupid is Sophie Ennis who, alongside co-editor Daisy Bates, relaunched Varsity blind dates in Michaelmas 2024. “The dating scene in Cambridge is so dire that someone needed to step in,” she laughs. Originally aiming simply to spice up her Lifestyle Editor application, Sophie never expected to receive over 100 signups.
Yet this pales in comparison to the 444 registered for RAG blind dates in February, admittedly a much older tradition. Every year, Cambridge Raising and Giving (RAG) chooses three charities to fundraise for: one local, one national, and one international. In 2025, their blind dates raised £2300 for Cambridge Acorn Project, Dravet Syndrome UK, and Solidaritee, making them one of their biggest fundraisers – though not quite as popular as the naked calendar…
“The dating scene in Cambridge is so dire that someone needed to step in”
Izzy Wyatt is RAG’s co-president. She believes the event’s popularity shows that Cambridge students need an excuse to date. Otherwise, friends will always take priority in those rare moments off from work: “If you’ve not got very much time to date and a limited pool of people, it doesn’t make for a particularly exciting dating scene.”
To this list of problems, Sophie adds Cambridge’s success-driven culture: “I think there are lots of people who arrive at university and are like, ‘Ok, I’ve got three years to find the person I’m going to marry and spend the rest of my life with’.” Bemoaning the lack of spontaneity in modern dating, Sophie continues, “I feel like most people are meeting their partners in night clubs or on Hinge. There aren’t a lot of third spaces where people go and talk to people who aren’t just their friends.”
So what does she think of dating apps? “They’re the worst thing ever, I hate them and they’re awful,” she spurts before backtracking. The one benefit of apps, she acknowledges, is their informality. The same goes for blind dates: “The more you think about anything, the more you’re going to talk yourself out of it.”
Stumped faces confront me when I try to elicit advantages of Cambridge’s dating scene. “The ‘everyone knows each other thing’ can be quite good if you want to vet people,” suggests Izzy. Meanwhile, Sophie acknowledges the power of the Cambridge bubble to forge intense relationships. While queer Cantabridgians face the “nightmare” of an even smaller dating pool, for Sophie, this means they are more open and less afraid of awkwardness. There is one other factor… “Lots of people think everyone’s strange and nerdy and therefore well-suited,” Izzy grimaces.
So how can blind dates alleviate these issues? “If you’re scared to put yourself out there, you can play it off as a joke,” Sophie advises. No longer need you worry about gossip’s eye or Cambridge’s miniscule dating pool: “Even if you get matched with someone you know, it’s out of your hands.” For Izzy, the beauty of RAG Blind Date is that there’s no FOMO since all your friends are also on dates. As Sophie says, “Worst case scenario, you’ve just had a new experience; best case scenario, you find the love of your life.”
“the solution may well be relinquishing expectations and embracing spontaneity”
Sophie believes most people sign up as “a bit of fun,” often in large groups of friends. “I’m kind of jealous that, because I set it up, I can’t really match myself with someone,” she laughs. For those still unconvinced, Izzy has some words of advice: “Have an open mind. Cupid has worked for you, whether you believe it or not.”
Frustratingly, Sophie hears little of what happens to the couples after their first dates but we know that RAG has enabled at least one marriage in its long history – unsurprising given its painstaking matching process. Both students describe spending long nights glued to spreadsheets. Izzy faces the additional task of organising the event at Revs: “Oh, my God, it’s such a slog!”
Obviously there are logistical considerations: age, college, sexuality. But these Cupids go further, asking, in Sophie’s case, for a description of yourself and your ideal partner or, for RAG, anything from classic Hinge prompts like your ideal Sunday, to quirky questions about spirit animals.
Sophie believes open-ended prompts are best for gauging character: “Even if they didn’t give much away in their application, sometimes you can tell a lot about a person just from that.” Conversely, Izzy focuses on celebrity crushes, while acknowledging that “there actually aren’t many people like Hugh Grant out there”.
Still, things don’t always go to plan. Izzy cringes at having matched two girls, one of whom thought the date was platonic and the other romantic. Somehow, Sophie tops this: “There were two guys I thought would be perfect for each other. They came back to do the interview and were like, ‘You sent me on a date with my ex’. I almost fell off my chair!”
By far the biggest problem RAG faces is a shortage of straight men. Izzy suggests this may be because, while women appreciate the safety and informality of public dates, “for men, the prospect of lots of other men being around could be intimidating.” One unfortunate byproduct of RAG’s men problem is that bi people are always matched with women.
“Worst case scenario, you’ve just had a new experience; best case scenario, you find the love of your life”
Another explanation could be that RAG has an overwhelmingly female fan base. Indeed, Varsity, fearing similar issues, provided the option of platonic dates but never faced a lack of straight men. “I guess romance is still rife in Cambridge,” Sophie laughs.
Sure, as an English student, Sophie had the advantage of very few contact hours in Michaelmas, while Izzy benefitted from the institutional memory of RAG. Nevertheless, organising blind dates can be as stressful as it is exciting, with students pulling out days before the event. Why do students put themselves through such anxiety?
For Sophie, her favourite part is the interviews afterwards: “It’s like having a debrief with your friends after a night out” or “a strange kind of anthropological study”. Izzy, meanwhile, enjoys the power of determining people’s Wednesday night (“You can be quite malicious if you like…”) and the thrill of watching couples she matched scoot closer together.
Ultimately, playing Cupid is fun. Indeed, as the president of Cambridge’s Matchmaking Society somewhat philosophically muses, “I feel like Matchmaking Society has and will always exist in some way”. Inspired by a similar organisation in Nottingham, this club ran speed dating events in 2023 but is now looking for a new president.
Rewind to 2000 and you have RUO3 – a dating site for Cantabridgians devised by Richard Neill and John Surcombe in a pub after Edinburgh Fringe. The service may only have 91 members now but, in 2001, it had over 2500. The site was so successful that it spread to Oxford, Warwick and graduates in general. Moreover, in the admittedly long time I’ve taken to write this article, its membership has jumped by 30, following a shout-out on Camfess.
True, the webpage absolutely looks like it was made in 2000, but it has a wide range of features. You can send people likes, or ensure they only see you like them if the feeling is mutual. There’s a “degree rescue mode” to stop you chatting too much, a May Ball section, and even Facebook-style poking. Codes can be generated to write in Valentine’s Day cards, allowing for anonymous messaging. The site is non-profit, self-funded, and promotes diversity – that and it has produced sixteen weddings.
Clearly, there are some amazing opportunities for dating in Cambridge. However, that doesn’t change dating’s overall incompatibility with Cambridge life. Given the amount of pressure we experience daily, the solution may well be to relinquish expectations and embrace spontaneity, whether that be through a blind date or a chance encounter. You never know when Cupid will strike.
