By Ruby Cline

So you’re massively crushing on your flatmate, but she has a long-distance boyfriend and you can hear their phone sex through the wall. You don’t know how to tell her (your Crushbridges never get posted) and the heartbreak of sitting opposite them at formal next week might be too much for you. You pour your heart out into your college confessions page instead of doing your essay due tomorrow. Somebody replies telling you to shut up, fresher.

This is love in a time of Camstress.

Falling for someone is hard enough already, and falling for someone in Cambridge is a whole different experience. Why is it a bigger deal to take somebody to brunch than to make it official? What do you do after a stunning first date… in week eight… with six weeks until you see them again? How come literally everyone you fancy is somehow individually connected to your six closest friends?

“I can’t promise resolutions, but I will promise at the very least some mild entertainment.”

bell hooks says in All About Love that ‘everyone wants to know more about love.’ I agree, but it can be particularly difficult to parse the complications of romance when everything else about this place is so bloody complicated already. There is simply no time to think about love. Luckily, I am offering my services to do that thinking for you. It’ll even be packaged neatly into a biweekly article here on Girl Talk for you to read instead of your supo work.

Now, I can’t promise resolutions. But I will promise at the very least some mild entertainment. Love and relationships at Cambridge don’t get enough critical thought in my humble opinion, and it’s finally time for us to laugh and cry while we discuss collegecest, sharking, long-distance, and much more.

Over the next term, this column will interview some of Cambridge’s cutest couples, eligible singles, and a good dose of distinguished daters with stories to die for. Together we will learn to love… in a time of Camstress.

Love in a time of Camstress is a biweekly Girl Talk column, written by Ruby Cline and contributed to by lovers across Cambridge.

Feature image credits: folioart via Pinterest