With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, I look around me at what dating has become in university: a case of extremes
University is a time for learning. Your degree, whilst the reason that you are technically here, is only part of what you learn. This is the stage where you learn about life, navigating relationships, friendships, and challenges. It’s also likely the first time you are immersed in a community of people from diverse cultures, financial backgrounds, and nations. This exposure is vital, as it opens up a multitude of new possibilities, including dating opportunities.
Having a crush on a theatre kid may have never been on your bucket list. Still, here you are running lines for his upcoming play, or downloading Duolingo to impress your new Spanish situationship, or even pretending to care about the stock market for that business guy you’re somehow dating. These relationships probably won’t be permanent, but that’s precisely their value. University is the ideal time to shatter your comfort zones, the familiar boundaries of what you know and who you typically surround yourself with.
However, with Valentine’s Day just around the corner, I look around me at what dating has become in university: a case of extremes. With either unusually long-term relationships or perpetual singleness, it seems as though university students are struggling with finding the perfect in-between. Students seem unable to find a healthy middle ground, gravitating either toward unusually rapid, long-term cohabitation or protracted singleness.
On the one hand, some students rush into living together or long-term commitments almost immediately, driven less by love and more by financial necessity. On the other hand, many are avoiding dating altogether, choosing to focus on studies, work, and economic survival instead. The housing crisis, cost-of-living pressures, and lingering effects of COVID-19 have transformed what was once an exploratory social period into a high-stakes balancing act among love, money, and independence.
A decade ago, dating at university looked very different. Students had more opportunities to meet people in dorms, clubs, societies, and at parties. Hookup culture thrived as a form of experimentation and personal freedom. Casual encounters were normalised, and meeting potential partners often happened organically through social events or mutual friends. Today, these chances are far less common. Remote lectures, online group projects, and prolonged remote work have limited in-person social interactions, making it harder to meet someone spontaneously. For many students, dating has become either a calculated financial decision or something to postpone indefinitely. The opportunity and stability for risk are gone, and the outcomes of making the wrong ‘choice’ are far too important. Accommodation, finance, politics, and more have always been a part of dating life since its conceptualisation. However, as a recession sets in, we see young people eager to settle down or terrified to start dating in our current climate. University, once known for risk, fun, exploration, and adventure, has now become almost a desert town for those seeking connection.
The financial realities facing students are stark. In 2023, RTÉ reported that more than half a million adults in Ireland now live with their parents, an increase of over 60,000 from 2016. In Dublin, 16% of young adults remain at home; in Galway, 9%. Renting is expensive: a 2024 Irish Times report revealed that the average cost of a single bed in Dublin is €823, with a double bed costing €864, roughly twice the average mortgage payment in the city. These costs are impossible to ignore when dating. A 2022 SpareRoom survey found that nearly a quarter of respondents would consider moving in with a partner earlier than planned to save money, while one in ten feel trapped in relationships they are unhappy in because they cannot afford to move out.
These pressures extend beyond living arrangements. Dating itself has become financially fraught. Traditional expectations for dates, gifts, and Valentine’s Day celebrations can feel like added burdens. A Bumble survey of 1,000 Irish daters found that 70% reported that dating while living with parents made the experience more difficult, and 39% said it could be a turn-off for potential partners. With money so central to dating decisions, romance can feel less about connection and more about practicality.
Technology also reshaped the dating landscape. Apps such as Tinder and Hinge offer the convenience of meeting people without leaving home, but the quality of connection is often superficial. Conversations can feel transactional, and a swiping culture has reinforced a sense of choice overload, making meaningful connections harder to achieve. Social circles are shrinking, experimentation is declining, and students are dating more within their existing networks. Hookup culture, once emblematic of university freedom, has slowed, giving way to caution and consideration of financial, emotional, and social pressures.
I always expected university dating to be a blur of hookups and messy situationships, and while there’s certainly no shortage of those around campus, I also envisioned the transformative experience of first love and first heartbreak. College is fundamentally a time for exploration, a new major, a different culture, and a new lifestyle. Dating should be treated as part of that journey of exploration. We have overlooked a crucial element of the university experience: risk-taking. This means taking the plunge to ask out a stranger, choosing experience over comfort and stability, and dating simply for the enjoyment of the present, not the certainty of the future. So, when Valentine’s Day inevitably arrives, embrace the risk, take the chance, and put yourself out there, for better or perhaps delightfully worse.
Sophie Gliott – Arts and Lifestyle Editor