When Ed Sheeran poetically said: “The club isn’t the best place to find a lover, So the bar is where I go”, I didn’t listen. In fact, I met my (now-ex) boyfriend at Wednesday Revs. Retrospectively, I wish I had paid more heed to Mr Sheeran’s words.

“No flat-cest, no college-cest, no course-cest, no friend-group-cest, no college family-cest…”

But, this got me thinking; where is an acceptable place to meet your partner in Cambridge? Is it necessary to have a wholesome meet-cute to tell your kids? There seems to be a list of places where not to meet someone, either because it would be too awkward or because it’s not serious enough (the latter is especially true in my case). No flat-cest, no college-cest, no course-cest, no friend-group-cest, no college family-cest, not your college spouse (which seems ironic considering it comes with its own proposal), no dating apps and definitely no nightclub. I’m sure we’ve all heard the same horror stories of people doing any of the above, but what about the success stories?

Course-cest

The dreaded course-cest. At its worst, it will leave you skipping your lectures and moving supervision groups. At its best, however, it gives you someone to work with, go to lectures with, and go to the Arc cafe to share three cookies with for £1.60 afterwards (if you can share these gorgeous, heavenly cookies, then it must be love). It’ll get you going to your lectures for a change if you can be there together and you can steal revision notes from them; that’s what love is all about.

“Sure, it’s convenient, but before you know it you’re cooking dinner at 11pm to avoid bumping into them”

College-cest

As a collegiate university, Cambridge offers unique advice: do not commit college-cest. It’s awkward, it’s messy, and it’s bound to end up on your college confession page. Sure, it’s convenient to only be a walk down the corridor from your partner, but when it ends, you’re cooking dinner at 11pm to avoid bumping into them in your Winnie the Pooh onesie in the kitchen, and avoiding your college library like they’ve found traces of the Bubonic Plague there. I asked my friend, Lauren, about her experience dating someone at the same college as her: one advantage of dating a fellow Homertonian is because she lives “too far away for a girl to be getting into a relationship with someone from a different college”. You’ve got to admit, they must save a fortune on late-night Ubers to one another. On a much sweeter note, she says that she has yet to see “any downsides to the arrangement” because she’s just so in love.

The Apps

Unfortunately, I’m not aware of anyone who has deleted the app meant to be deleted, because they found someone on there. I do, however, know people who deleted it because one more Hinge date would make them go clinically insane. After witnessing my friends on Tinder and Hinge, and the responses they get, I understand why. Saying you enjoy the smaller things in life attached to a photo of his BMW is probably not the move (it might float someone else’s boat so good luck I guess).

The Set-Up

Sometimes, your own friends have been hiding your future partner behind their back before they start match-making you. My friend Esha was being drip-fed information about her now-boyfriend by their mutual friend without her even knowing. In return, her boyfriend was also being drip-fed information about her, but he very much did know, because he eventually asked her out point blank after a Union debate. Who knew Union hacks were capable of love? Being part of a set-up has a higher chance of success because it’s not just your opinion, it’s your friend’s too (unless you’re all delusional together). If your friend happens to have other friends outside of you – shocking, I know – then there’s probably a reason for it. They’re likely to have similar interests, a decent character, and an excellent taste in friends too. If your friend keeps dropping hints about someone else to you, use those Cambridge critical thinking skills and realise that, hmm, maybe there’s a reason why they’re getting full government name-dropped in the pub.

The lesson: take a chance on the guy you meet at Revs. You never know, it might be love. And it might not. How should I know?