When I think of returning to Newnham for my final year, what springs to mind is the college’s café, the Iris.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love the café. In my first year, no cafe meant deciding whether a dash to the Co-op in November was worth catching hypothermia for, or whether I’d have to sign up to a sugar-baby website to afford regular trips to ARC cafe.

However, what also comes to mind are the ‘café boys’: unaccompanied males, in Newnham, in broad daylight, bold as brass.

Now, I didn’t apply to Newnham and personally I like the illusion the café provides of it being a mixed-sex college. Plus, by normalising male presence in the college, it’s reducing the likelihood of me asking my boyfriend to hide in the carpark anytime a fire alarm goes off to save the awkwardness (sorry Sam).

But I don’t like it when I’m standing in a very, very long queue and the last mozzarella focaccia has been stolen by one such ‘café boy’.

I don’t like it when said unaccompanied man has taken up an entire booth by himself for the last 4 hours (which is, frankly, the epitome of manspreading). And I don’t like it when I’m trying to practice Thursday morning self care, hungover, walking around bra-free with joggers on, and I find myself a spectacle to an audience of slightly taken-aback males.

So as a new year begins, I’m laying down some New Rules for these café boys, particularly those with a propensity for spreading out in a cafe booth (you know who you are).

#1: Leave my booths alone

If you’re a lone man who spies an empty booth in the café, stop, drop and roll... far away. There’s about a hundred places to sit, you don’t need a booth. Stop.

#2: If I look like shit, do not look at me

If you see me, or anyone else, looking a little worse for wear, it’s your solemn duty to look away. Consider me Newnham’s Medusa - it won’t go well for either of us if I catch you staring whilst I have an existential crisis over my fifth cup of coffee.

#3: In exam term, piss off

Just piss off. Really. There’s at least three other cafés on Sidge where your presence isn’t a total invasion. If it’s a tad more expensive, don’t worry, the good old gender pay gap will see you fairly compensated in no time!

#4: The buttery is off limits

Undaunted by the fact that it’s going to cost them an extra £1 for not going to Newnham, or that trying the tilapia (whatever that is) is akin to playing a particularly dangerous game of Russian roulette, (with a side of yesterday’s veg), some unaccompanied men do indeed persevere. It’s a step too far.

So, there you have it, the correct etiquette for Newnham Café. Read and learn it well.