Written by Anushka Vineet
Disclaimer: All names provided in the piece are fake. No real identities have been revealed in this article. I do not know a Chelsea.
Canberra is a university town. It is an undeniable fact that even the Australian Bureau of Statistics states that the ACT has a “younger age distribution than Australia as a whole, reflecting the number of young adults who move to the territory for education”.
Stepping foot on campus for the first time as a university student opens your eyes to an untapped, untouched demographic. While at the ANU, you will find your future friends, enemies, situationships, former situationships, sneaky links, heartbreaks, heartthrobs, the guy you meet when you’re 19, demons, and maybe, if you are lucky, your partner for life.
We asked you to divulge your fairytale moments, traumatic dating experiences, and shout from the rooftops your love for love. Our investigations noted the following trends (displayed in our favourite form of written expression):
#datingapps4lyfe
Maybe you are escaping the big city life, opting for the small-town experience. However, embracing the small-town vibe comes with one hard truth experienced by some of the ANU community.
There is a high possibility that one can run out of potential suitors to match with on Tinder and Hinge. A devastating but very real risk.
The apps also pose the risk that an old, fizzled-out match walks unexpectedly into your first tutorial of the year. Or your next-door neighbour decides it is the right time to shoot their shot over the app rather than in your awkward hallway interactions on the way to the showers.
Maybe, like one lucky ANU student, you meet your boyfriend of three years on Tinder: what a fairytale love story!
However, it could be an anomaly, as “shit Hinge and Tinder dates” seem to plague the majority of the ANU population. Maybe you were unlucky and accused of flirting with the waiter on your first date. Maybe you left the date knowing all their extended family names and eating habits, with them failing to discover you had an identical twin.
But alas, a bottle of rosé later, playing Hinge and Tinder is such a good bonding experience with the gals, but also an educational experience on understanding one’s boundaries.
#collegeincest4lyfe
There are very few universities in Australia that embody the college lifestyle quite like the ANU. It would not be far-fetched to believe that a Pitch Perfect-esque movie, the epitome of American college life, would work if set at the ANU. Perhaps you came onto campus believing that the colleges were like sororities and frats. To some extent, with the heated rivalry present between each one, they kinda are.
Don’t believe us? Think about one of the first questions a first-year student would ask when you meet them for the first time. Hi girli, my name is Chelsea! What college did you go to? If this was not your first question, we hedge a bet this was the second question after Where in Sydney are you from?
Normally, those first years living on campus are one’s first foray into living out of home. And like any new experience, you are bound to go a tad crazy, cause some mayhem and maybe make some interesting novel choices.
However, moving to college for the first time is also an untapped pool of potential suitors. That first O-week event, you survey your options, consult with your friend Chelsea (whom you met 7.45 hours) prior and decide which boy in the year above will be your campus crush for life. In almost a Bridgerton-esque way, you decide who’s the catch of the season and court the life out of them in the line to one22.
But those first weeks of college can also change the course of your life. Maybe you will meet your first-year boyfriend who, looking back, you unbelievably/stupidly let meet your parents. Or maybe, true story, the boy you met on your first day at Wright, six years later, you end up happily married!
With college life comes the ability to live with your whole social network. On the surface, living with all your friends sounds like constant fun, but remember that it also includes most people in your Canberra sphere. Acquaintances, people you talked to inebriated, people you may dislike, and people you may have once been extra friendly with could be found within college walls.
Messy messy messy, but isn’t this what being a silly college girl is all about?
#dalyeroadchallenge4lyfe
If you know, you know. No comments to be made at this time from Observer.
#branchingoutofANU4lyfe
It is a rite of passage to learn that there are more universities in Canberra than just the ANU. It is a shocking discovery for most.
We love our University of Canberra friends! Learning that there is a branch of the Australian Catholic University and Charles Sturt University, even though you may still have never met a student, is a formative ANU experience.
However, UNSW Canberra probably takes the cake for inciting the most traumatising moments for ANU students. To be clearer than the soldier-to-be would ever be, UNSW Canberra is what one might say to hide the fact that they are from ADFA.
Sticking out like a sore thumb in O’Malley’s and Downstairs Moose on a Saturday night, it is a necessary learning experience to successfully distinguish them from other normal young adults.
Hint: it’s in the hair and the walk.
#leavingCBR4lyfe
Before you know it’s time to leave the university life behind and enter the real world. Three to ten years later, you can finally grow wings and fly out of the ANU, though shackled by a certain amount of HECS debt.
With graduation comes the age-old question: Should I stay or should I go?
Leaving Canberra, you are leaving the dating scene behind for maybe a better diaspora. But also comes the possibility of relationships being left behind.
Yes, this problem could be easily mitigated by dating your high school sweetheart, and you both move down and back up to Sydney, but arguably, this is the anomaly. And with the world at our disposal, ANU students can end up scattered far and wide across the universe.
We concede that dating in Canberra can be hard, and there are no hard or fast solutions. Everyone’s experience is unique, tumultuous and irreplaceable. But isn’t that love? We consume romcoms, which create unreasonable expectations of love that arguably cannot be applied to Canberra life. Through dating in Canberra, you will discover the best and worst our generation has to offer.
So what have we learnt? We are all in this together.
Graphics by Anushkaa Ahuja
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