By Adele Dazeem
It can be difficult to navigate the dating world in university. Especially in 2025, where online dating has become the new normal, even bringing along its own terminology: from ghosting to long-term situationships, how can we survive it? Your twenties are a time of meeting new people, finding yourself, and figuring out what you value. Not every date is going to be a winner, and in any other circumstance it would be quite easy to laugh about a bad first date with your friends and move on. But at Mt. St. A, finding the one is an entirely different ball game.
In a town barely big enough to sneeze in without knocking someone else over, Ballsackville is largely comprised of Mt. St. A students. In a pond of 2300 people, it is hard to say there are other fish in the sea. Recent reports reveal that swiping right on an individual in Ballsackville increases your likelihood of being stuck behind them at the grocery store by approximately 120 per cent. “It’s like, do we make eye contact? Should I say hi? Do you think if I ducked behind this display of cereal boxes he’d see me?” confessed one student, who wishes to remain anonymous. “Yeah, I saw her, I don’t know why she dove into that shelf, it was kinda weird” described Kyle, an eye-witness to the scene and the situationship in question.
Another student revealed that he drunkenly sent a DM over Instagram to a cute girl on his explore page, only to realize that she was his chemistry TA during his five-hour lab the next day. When asked to make a statement, the student had only this to say,“shooters shoot!” He ultimately failed his lab and will have to repeat the course in the fall. “I guess we didn’t have chemistry after all,” he uttered regrettably.
So, what is the most effective way to meet your soulmate on campus? Whether it is on Hinge, Tinder, Bumble, or Grindr, one thing is for sure: you will not have to worry about getting ghosted if there are only two locations to study on campus. Being haunted might be more accurate, because if the one that got away does not live in your residence, you definitely have an 8:30 a.m. lecture with them. Even at Gooser’s, what happens on a wild Saturday night will definitely have to pass you by on the way to RuPaul Bell Library, where you will have to take the only two available tables (facing each other, naturally) in order to get your assignments done.
“It’s an epidemic!” cried one victim, who in an attempt to visit the only gas station in town, ran into her campus crush and had to awkwardly hold the door for him. And what about meeting someone organically? If you do happen to meet someone in the wild, you can guarantee that not only do you have a million mutual friends, but there are also very few spots to take someone on a first date where you will not see your entire varsity team or one of your professors. It is not easy to get to know someone when your favourite lab instructor stops by your table and asks you to introduce your new “special someone.”.
But do not give up hope, lovebirds! A 2020 study revealed that around 41 per cent of all university students are single! So that leaves you with 943 eligible candidates at Mt. St. A. Well, excluding the ones you have nothing in common with, or you are not attracted to, or who are not attracted to you. And that leaves you with… the guy you matched with on Tinder last month, who sent a “u up?” text at 3:08 a.m. and then never contacted you again. Good luck!
