When I asked my first participant about dating, and more specifically online dating in St Andrews, she let out a cackle before saying: “Hinge is an app that was created with the sole purpose of sucking the life from everyone who is on it. The CEO of Hinge is feeding on my misery every goddamn day.”
Through interviewing girls across town, I discovered that her sentiment is far from unshared. As Valentine’s Day fast approaches, donning the world in red and pink and charging the otherwise short month with emotion, love and romance, have become unavoidable topics. For many of the women I talked to, the holiday elicits complex and difficult emotions, including the pressure to be in a relationship, reminders of exes, the awkward tip-toe around the big what are we? question with a partner or situationship, and for some, the inability to fully enjoy Galentines while being bombarded with smiling couples on social media.
On the other hand, many also described joy or indifference towards Valentine’s Day. One participant jokingly noted that she loves it because “more fanfiction gets published on this day” while others deemed it as a Pagan holiday contorted into capitalism. Others described loving the aesthetic, the joy of getting to do something fun with a partner or planning a fun gathering. One participant described how in her eyes, Valentines is a celebration of all kinds of love: “I don’t really think it is better if you’re in a relationship for Valentine’s Day. Galentines is really really fun.” She further emphasized the importance of friendship, a fact that has been accentuated to her after a recent break up: “Don’t feel like dating is a necessity when it is not. I feel a lot more fulfilled in my friendships and at the end of the day, when a relationship falls through, the people you end up turning towards are your friends.”
Similarly, when I further delved into the St Andrews female dating experience, I was met with diverse and complex answers. However, regardless of relationship status, there was a common point of view shared among many participants; in a small town, there is something pin-pointedly awkward and a little bit harrowing about venturing into the abyss and trying to find love, romance, a hook up, and everything in between. Many people described using dating apps as a tool to put themselves out there, finding themselves awkwardly avoiding eye contact with someone they matched with on Hinge in Tesco, swiping through apps after a drunken night out and regretting all their matches the next morning, or resorting to using the app solely as a source of validation after the same bland messages. When I asked more broadly about the dating scene in St Andrews, one girl jokingly advised to “get good at communicating if you want to date in St Andrews because you will see them everywhere” while another told me “everyone is always connected” before describing how the guy she just started seeing has connections to her ex.
When participants were given the opportunity to describe the worst or best date they went on, I was met with many different experiences from dates gone awry to sweet romantic gestures to forgettable ones. One participant described a particularly bad St Andrews Hinge date in which she politely told a guy she did not drink and he immediately proceeded to invite her out to a bar for their first date. Already a bit disenchanted, when the day of their date finally rolled around, he would arrive drunk from a house party and she would be taken to virtually every bar in town to watch him drink and then groan with his head down on the table while she stayed sober. The night culminated with him talking about living with his ex-girlfriend for the next academic year and all the various ways he resented her.
Another described a bad date (albeit not from a dating app) where she was invited to Welly Ball only one day before the ball: “It was supposed to be nice,” she explained. “He told me he got a ticket the day before, leaving me with one day to get a dress, but he didn’t invite me to pres with all of his friends. He doesn’t even tell me he’s on the bus– on the way there. I told him he could spend all night with his friends because that was the worst date.” She also went on to share her best date, which was a beautiful St Andrews-based date where they star gazed at the pier: “it was a very clear night, very starry. We saw all the constellations. It turned into a date and it was quite cute.”
Others described their best dates around St Andrews. One participant said her best date was in Edinburgh: “We went to a ceilidh and we bought a fuck ton of chocolate and ate it in the Edinburgh cemetery by Adam Smith’s grave.” She also described the experience of getting ghosted in St Andrews after an amicable coffee date and how “fucking awkward” it felt when she ran into him around town. In spite of the ghosting experience, she also went on several dates with women that ended on very civil terms in spite of the connection ending after only a few dates.
Whether we actively acknowledge it or not, the miniature town of St Andrews is a microcosm of modern day love stories that range from the stuff out of romance novels to nightmarish romantic encounters. Similarly, beyond the scope of my interviews, there are currently 5,419 people at St Andrews following Crushdrews, an Instagram account where students can publicly confess their town crushes. If you go on the page, you will find it is home to endless brunette library crushes, tattooed bartenders and cute baristas crushes, and small snippets of connection between people that leaves one person longing for more; for example, a charged glance between two people in a shop on Market Street or a conversation about an obscure book series in a cafe. There are even confessions to seeing neighbors having sex besides their open window every night and finding it to be inspirational. Every day people are submitting and reading each other’s submissions, craving to know who is crushing on who and to get a glimpse into the dating scene at St Andrews.
Similarly, nearly every week, I find myself accidentally privy to other student’s private conversations about their love lives. On my bus ride home, people shout that they simply cannot for the life of them understand how their friend was dumped as we fly around cobblestoned corners. On my way to class, two girls whisk by arm and arm, one emphasizing to the other: “Never ever move in with a guy you’re dating. I dated a guy for years and I would never move in with him,” and as I am studying, I listen to someone recount the all too familiar heart-wrenching first year situationship that led them on one too many train rides across the country.
I decided to end my interviews asking for romantic wisdom, either from the participants themselves or things they have heard from older people in their lives. I was told to have a boyfriend who is obsessed with you at least once in your life, to never date long distance, and to treat relationships as a try it before you buy it situation. In a similar vein, I was told to be wary of accidentally dropping off the face of the earth when you get in a relationship and that your female friendships are the greatest relationships you will ever have.
Ultimately, while Valentine’s day can be a day of performance, full of couples professing their undying love for each other on Instagram, it is also a time to celebrate all kinds of love. Love is full of humorous, relatable, and awkward experiences alongside full-bodied heartbreak, tiny glances, failed situationships, long distance relationships, hookups and flings, self-love, the best and worst dates, friendship and platonic love, and everything in between.