Young love: The impact of Covid on college dating
Picture: iStock
Covid-19 has had a diverse effect on the population of Ireland over the past year. For college students, life has changed unrecognisably. In September, we were told that we would no longer have the refuge of stuffy lecture halls, but would be at home doing online lectures instead.
The Union of Students in Ireland conducted a survey in July about third level students’ experiences with online learning. Nearly 65% of students felt their learning outcomes changed because of Covid-19. Almost a third lost employment and felt that their mental health was worse because of lockdown. More than a third reported that they didn’t have opportunities to engage with other classmates when lectures moved online.
For me, the college experience is about making new friends, creating unforgettable memories, and exploring who you are as a person.
For a while, strategic plans for 90-minute meals with friends or partners became the ‘new normal’. Now, those plans seem further and further away and the chance of meeting people is even more limited, especially when it comes to dating.
As a final year student in NUI Galway, I have found the lack of social activity throughout the rollercoaster of lockdowns difficult. Meeting new people has been virtually impossible, and any attempt I've made at dating over the past year has been solely through the use of dating apps.
It's much harder to make connections with people when you can’t meet them in person. As a result, options to get into a relationship have been quite limited. Socialising has moved into virtual reality, and as such, keeping conversations going online can be tedious.
A mixture of pandemic and Zoom fatigue from online learning and working from home can mean sometimes you'd rather stick on Netflix and watch it by yourself, rather than chat with someone else. As well as that, it is hard to discuss what news you have with someone when there isn’t much happening around you.
The phrase 'everyone is in the same boat' is something we've heard time and time again, so I got in touch with other college students to figure out what their experiences with dating have been like and if they have been similar to mine.
Ellen Cashen, 22, is currently undertaking her law lectures from her family home in Co Offaly. She was in a four-year-long relationship when the first lockdown struck in March, but at the time, her boyfriend had also just spent six months abroad. She says it was almost harder knowing he was home in Ireland, rather than in New Zealand.
“Some people were saying they hadn’t seen their partners in three weeks. I felt I had that head start on them because it had been six months when lockdown hit. It wasn’t until restrictions eased in June that I saw him again. Knowing he was only over the road in Portlaoise rather than being in New Zealand was tough,” Ellen says.
Their relationship came to an end during the second level 5 lockdown. “It wasn’t ideal circumstances,” Ellen says, explaining that they broke up over the phone.
“It happened on a Sunday night, and I work in a garage at the weekends, so I hadn’t anywhere to go. I was at home and I had to find a way to distract myself. I couldn’t go for food or a drink with friends, I couldn’t get into my car and go for a drive.”
Ellen downloaded the dating app Tinder and when restrictions eased met another user for a date.
“When you do that, it’s not like when you’re in a nightclub and you don’t know them. You’ve spent however many weeks chatting to them before that, and it feels a lot more personal which was weird but nice,” she says.
A second-year student studying in NUI Galway, who wishes to remain anonymous, described his experiences as an LGBTQ+ student during the past year as “tough”.
University societies were a huge part of his life before the pandemic, especially the LGBTQ+ society Bródsoc, which helped the 18-year-old find himself when he started college. He also split from his partner following the nation's first lockdown.
“I didn’t have much space to be myself in secondary school and it wasn’t uncommon to hear a slur in the hallways. When I came to Galway, I met like-minded people through societies, and that just brought me out of my shell. I also had a queer housemate who I immediately became friends with because we had so much in common, which was so reassuring,” he says.
When the country went into its first lockdown, his housemate moved out and the relationship he was in also turned long-distance.
“I was also in a long-distance relationship during the first lockdown, but that came to an end, unfortunately. They had to take time to figure themselves out, and it is difficult to do that when you are dating someone. Lockdown was a bit lonely.”
Like Ellen, he gave dating apps a go, but found online dating wasn’t for him.
“I tried Tinder for a while and I didn’t like it. I also tried Grindr but found it to be a lot more sexual. I got a [crude] message off someone without a profile picture and I don’t know if they were trying to flirt, but it wasn’t for me,” he says.
Dr Siobhán O’Higgins, a research fellow in NUI Galway’s School of Psychology, says students are under a lot of pressure at the moment.
“There is a lot of stress, there is a lot of mental anguish. Imagine you’re a first-year student, who only started college last September, and you were going to get a job in summer or go travelling and you thought you were going to get a newfound sense of independence and find yourself, and then you just didn’t,” she says.
“You’re stuck at home and studying online and it’s a completely different reality to what college life was going to be like. You would no longer have been the son or daughter of Mary and Joe, or you wouldn’t have been the person who went to a certain school, you would have been a different person, forming an almost new independent identity. It’s almost a rite of passage in a way, and students just haven’t been able to experience that this year.”
O’ Higgins says consent is a major area to focus on as students try to connect online while on lockdown.
"People are forming all sorts of relationships online and trying to meet up with them in person when they can to get to know them. They’re also currently relying on the use of porn and sexual imagery online as they cannot form intimate relationships,” she says.
“When this all ends, like with the Spanish flu and other pandemics, people will go out. Suddenly they will be able to be close to others again without the fear of the virus. The promotion of consent is important so that when the time does come, and people are forming intimate relations again, they’ll understand the importance of safety and mutual pleasure.”
Some students were in romantic relationships when the pandemic hit and while they may be able to maintain those relationships across long distances, it’s not without challenge.
Kayley Hardiman is 23 years old and met her boyfriend Darragh while in college in Limerick. The couple had been seeing each other for exactly one month on the day colleges closed last year.
“My boyfriend is from Kerry but lives and works in Limerick," she says.
Kayley moved home to Castle Daly in Westmeath just one week after the University of Limerick closed last year. She was completing her final year of an undergraduate degree in journalism and her relationship was brand new, in “the honeymoon stage” as she puts it.
“We did video calls, but we now mostly use Snapchat because the two of us are so busy. He works full-time, and I’m in college as well as working part-time from home. You do get very sick of Zoom and I think I’m only depressing myself half of the time by scrolling on Twitter,” she says.
“I feel like my social media usage has skyrocketed, but I make excuses that I need to keep up with the news when I really don’t.”
Having only seen Darragh a handful of times over the past year, Kayley says the plan is to submit her dissertation in August and move back to Limerick in September.
“When he was here for Christmas, I brought him to the cinema, we went for food and I brought him to the two shopping centres in Athlone. We can’t do much even when we are together. Things are so mundane that I actually sat for two hours and set up his LinkedIn account with him,” she laughs, adding that when ‘normal life’ resumes, she’ll be the first person to head to the nightclubs.
“I’ll probably be 25 before they’re open again, which would have seemed too old to me before the pandemic, but I’ll be there! It’s the nights out and live gigs I think I miss the most.”
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