Another year, another beau, another flop in your love life? Not this year! We are determined to finally make this your year, so here is the ultimate, totally foolproof, guaranteed-to-work guide for achieving a romantic comeback.
1.) Stop dating Trinners
I’m kidding (mostly). There are a million jokes to be made about dating a fellow Trinity student, and a million complementary cautionary tales. We’ve all heard horror stories detailing friend group implosions, awkward post-breakup encounters at tutorials for those who have dared to commit course-cest, or the fan favourite canon event “softboy scam” which seems to plague a worrying proportion of men who frequent the arts block.
However, if you find the dating pool to be dry, I’d suggest seriously considering dating outside whatever is comfortable, easy, and right in front of you. If you dare, try dating outside your ideal type or course, and you might be pleasantly surprised.
2.) Deromanticise your expectations
“Love is a beautiful thing, but a lot of the time it can be blissfully boring, and that is one of the things most wonderful about it!”
Romance in Trinity is not going to be like Normal People. In fact, let’s romanticise being normal. It’s time to stop putting such gravitas on the whirlwind romance, the kind of love stories that are begging to be adapted to film, and start romanticising the mundanity of it all, and the preciousness of sweet, sweet stability. Nothing is sexier than having someone you can run errands with!
Do not get me wrong: I am pro-romantic. What I suggest is to put that romantic energy into the everyday.
Love is a beautiful thing, but a lot of the time it can be blissfully boring, and that is one of the things most wonderful about it!
3.) Choose your peace (you can’t fix them!)
“A partner is a partner – neither of you are halves of a whole. You are both wholes meant to travel alongside each other – and not wear each other away into pieces you have forced to fit together”
We are enforcing a ban on the Princess Carolyn and Bojack Horseman dynamic. The minute you are pushed to change or extend too much of yourself, eject yourself from that situation.
You can encourage growth, but that choice is on them – and if they choose to be that draining partner who brings out the “but when it’s good, it’s good” in you, run for the hills. If you’ve ever read Shel Silverstein’s The Missing Piece, you’ll know that a partner is a partner – neither of you are halves of a whole. You are both wholes meant to travel alongside each other – and not wear each other away into pieces you have forced to fit together. There is no such thing as a missing piece.
4.) Stick to your boundaries
It’s one thing to know what you want, but another to defend it when you finally realise what it is you want. Being firm with your own boundaries is potentially the most difficult part of dating. Whether you’re in your Jade West Topping Bottoms era, or you are ready to be completely enveloped by another person so that the very fabric of your souls are interlinked, you have got to stand by that. I have been both the victim and the villain of Chappell Roan’s Casual in different situations. Don’t ghost, and don’t chase after you’ve been let down – stand by “no” whether you are on the receiving or giving end of it.
When you can’t give what the other person needs, and if they can’t give you what you need, let them go – you are equally deserving of happiness, whatever that might mean for either of you.
5.) Communicate clearly
You know that joke about how most movies would end if two characters just sat down and had a conversation? Your life is not a movie, spare the melodrama and accept that we are all adults now.
In all seriousness, I am no stranger to fumbling this step. Communication and trust is a constant work in progress. I find it hard to trust, and it is a terrifying thing to bare your heart to somebody with trembling hands, and more terrifying to trust when things are good. How do you trust happiness? You trust in them.
They are not mind-readers, and one thing I have learned over the years is that the vast majority of people are not overthinking the way you are. Of course, it would be so much better if your partner could anticipate every thought that you have, but the thing about dating people is that they are just people. Communicating wants, needs and dislikes can feel unnatural and inorganic, but it is necessary. Perhaps one day I will date a telepathic Professor X type, but for now, I have to communicate.
6.) Make peace with yourself
“I think there is an inherent romance in the growth and betterment of the self in the presence of another”
Ugh, boring! I have nothing more to add to the classic cheesy self-motivating spiel to “love yourself first” and to find peace with the state of being single. What I will say, though, is that I have never agreed that you must love yourself first in order to love somebody else, as I believe that loving yourself is a continuous, never-ending process, but I do believe in obtaining a sense of self-neutrality. To accept and be alright with the state of your own being is crucial. I think there is an inherent romance in the growth and betterment of the self in the presence of another.
7.) Fall in love with your mates
At the end of the day, what I have gained from my college years are the friends I’ve made. The beauty and the romance of the college experience is found within the connections and the love that is formed between people embarking on similar adventures. There is a kindred spirit amongst students, and a special kind of love and bond between those you meet, particularly in your early 20s. Some of the most intimate and romantic moments I’ve experienced in my lifetime have been whilst crowding over a single mirror to get ready for a night out with the girls, holding a dear friend’s hand watching All of Us Strangers, crying over a crush with a pint of ice cream with a mate, or dancing together watching a sunset that you travelled together to go see.
Platonic love is one of the most cinematic and romantic loves that there is. Do not neglect your mates and remember to tell them that you love them.
8.) Fall in love with everything, even yourself.
Finally, romanticise your every day, live each day like you are choosing to return to it just for the sake of reliving it. Live your life like Domhnall Gleeson’s character in About Time. Take yourself on dates and learn to appreciate your moments of solitude despite how annoying it is to be told to be okay with being by yourself. In the moments in which you are with people, listen with a bit more intent, ask more questions, and be kind.
For some, the knowledge that we are to spend the rest of our lives with ourselves is terrifying, something like a death sentence. The key is to realise that is not such a terrible thing when there are infinite forms that love can take.
