Did you know that 72% of Durham students end up getting married to another Durham student? Vicki Raimes puckers up…

Freshers, get this: 72% of Durham students end up with another Durham student. As in, they kop off with them. For life. As Freshers you’re probably the only people who have any interest in this statistic. Most of us are distinctively bored by now, having read this depressing/hopeful bit of trivia in the numerous student media publications trying to make the disgruntled singleton feel better on Valentine’s Day.

But, dear first year, as the old saying goes: knowledge is power. And the power of love can be pretty great (as old-age warbler Celine Dion keeps screeching). Now you know that Durham University isn’t just a place to study your pert, and soon to be groped, little arse off, it’s time to start making lots of mates…and ‘mates’.

Below is a guide, courtesy of the lovely durham21, which will aid you in your quest to find:

a) a one-night stand
b) the ‘one’
c) nothing at all. Instead, you should avoid this messy business and get the ‘one’ you really want: a first class degree.

The fresher free-for-all
Ok, so everybody knows that freshers’ week is just one big excuse to experience drunkenness of gigantic proportions. Unfortunately, with such unprecedented levels of intoxication comes the dreaded drunken desire to nail another Durham student. Even more unfortunately, it’s often the young fresher ladies that experience the nailing after getting totally hammered on Jimmy A’s triples (yes, they really are triples).

The most obvious fresher faux pas is to become what your peers may label ‘fresh meat’. In other words, you become easy pickings for the 2nd, 3rd and 4th year Durham folk.

It generally goes something like this: you’re dancing away in a crowded Klute/Loveshack/Studio when you experience a sneaky grope/mouth lunge (lasting anything between 30 seconds and five hours). Embarrassing? Yes. But look on the bright side: if you don’t remember it, it never happened. And if you don’t remember it, they don’t even have to acknowledge it. Everyone’s a winner.

Even cheekier than the average student on the street, the newbie Durhamite may find themselves lured into a clinch with one of the people meant to be the most responsible of us all (ahahaha): the Fresher Rep.

For you, it might be the magnetic pull of authority (and the fact that their marginally more sober self can keep you propped up); for them, you’re young, innocent and, quite frankly, a perk of the job. Consequences are very similar to pulling any random Durham bod. However, there’s always the chance that the pulled fresher will pine Fresher Rep for the rest of Michaelmas term. An unfortunate occupational hazard.

Then there’s the ultimate shame, the ultimate cliché. Some freshers go all the way and commit the greatest ‘relationship’ crime of all: incest. Now, this isn’t quite as dramatic (or illegal) as it sounds. I’m talking about your college parents. They seem so sweet, so caring at first. You find yourself with a loving mum and a doting dad kind enough to send pre-Durham letters of encouragement and sweeties. They invite you round for tea and biscuits, give you all the warnings (i.e. don’t pull your fresher rep) and offer you a pile of surprisingly new-looking books from their first year.

Not so, in my case. Out of the goodness of my own heart, here is a warning to you all…

“In my first year, I found myself with some rather eccentric family arrangements: two college dads and three brothers. The daddies quickly told me that they weren’t gay (a true warning, in retrospect), but had signed up to have a ‘bloody good larf’. On the fateful ‘Parents Night’ we all bombed into town to enjoy toxic shots and exotic fishbowls. An easy target from the start, I found myself (of course) snogging daddy within the hour. My other daddy had gone off to the airport to collect his girlfriend (’mummy’) and one of my brothers was feeling up daddy’s mate’s daughter. Needless to say, I never was invited round for Sunday Lunch.”

NOTE: Do not pull college parent unless you enjoy breakfast sniggers, chants of ‘incest is best’ and a mention in the college newspaper.

The Fresher Fairytale
Even worse than pulling your college parent/brother/rep/random person, is seeing two people get off during freshers’ week, then decide to stick it out for eternity. Yep, more gagsome than seven Klute doubles is the ‘happy ending’ relationship that forms right at the beginning of university. While transforming a cheeky fumble into some sort of lover’s fairytale is not big and it’s not clever, there are a few mentalist freshers who do just this.

A first year friend of mine would be one of these people. After snogging one chap on the first night, she moved onto another on the second night. She stuck with the latter lad. They’re now engaged and planning a wedding that will no doubt be brimming with Durham alumni (perfect for those desperate students yet to secure a Durham lover). In a way, you’ve got to be happy for them. They’re living proof that Klute can play a meaningful part in your life, after all. But there’s no denying the vom-factor of this story.

NOTE: Do not go for a guy/gal in the first week and stick with them out of sheer desperation. The only ball and chain most people should be dealing with is the one that ties you to your desk. In your first month or two, focus on making friends.

Housemate hell
For some unexplainable reason, many freshers feel it is necessary to search for second year digs five minutes after arriving in Durham. Get caught up in this crazy practice and you’ll have scoured North Road and signed a house contract before you can say ‘I’ve found a better friendship group’.

Unfortunately, tolerating friends-come-acquaintances is not the worst part of this mad-dash arrangement. If you’ve opted to live with a mixture of males and females in second year, some of your new-found ‘mates’ may have evolved into the dreaded ‘mating pair’ come next October. Living with a couple forced together by circumstance can be, putting it lightly, a fucking disaster. True, they like each other now, but what about after they’ve witnessed cheesy socks, manky dishes and stains down the toilet bowl nobody should see?

You run the risk of witnessing your home become a battlefield, hearing screams through the wall when you’re trying to do a bit of (rare) studying and dealing with sobs when one brings home a new bit of fluff, post-disastrous relationship. If you want to avoid all this, there’s a simple solution: live with people of the same sex, for God’s sake, (says the girl who lived with five blokes in second year. And NO I didn’t pull a single one of them). Do this and the worst you’ll experience is the sheepish looks on the staircase the morning after, as unidentified male/female scurries from your pad.

The long-distance couple
So if 72% of us are going to find our future spouse in Durham, what about the other 28%? Some are, quite frankly, too geeky to bother
with all this relationship malarkey. Why find a partner when you can caress a lovely Physics book?

However, most of the people without a Durham squeeze have, unfortunately, been bagsied by a thieving non-Durham university student back home. People in this sort of a relationship are nice enough. They’re generally not going to provide any of the dramatics on a booze-fuelled night out, and you might find them indisposed every weekend, but they make great shoulders to cry on, and you generally know where you stand with them.

In fact, opting for a long-distance relationship is actually a very wise investment. While it’s absolutely shit when Valentine’s Day comes on a Wednesday, it’s great if you actually plan to get some studying done at university. It’s also an excellent way to ensure damage limitation in the case of a dreaded break-up i.e. you won’t see ex-object of your desire walking hand-in-hand with a random up the Bailey at 2am.

The one-night stand
They’re nothing new or exclusive to Durham University but, for the love of God, don’t get mixed-up in the one night stand game. There are few people at Durham (Christians, the sickeningly sensible and the lucky being the exceptions) who manage to avoid some sort of passionate fumble after a night of drunken excess.

However, the benefits (often few) never outweigh the shame and embarrassment that inevitably follows. Even if they’re not from your college, or from your course, you will be unable to avoid the object of your one-night desire. A swift click on Facebook is sure to reveal that at least five of your mates are linked to your pull. And if you met in Klute, there is no escaping its shoebox proportions the next time you venture out.

Even if you think all is well (by a miracle of God they’re not indirectly linked to your Facebook, your friends show no flicker of recognition at the mention of their name and they appear to have stopped visiting their usual haunts. Is that your fault?!?) you’re sure to bang into them in the street or discover your mutual love of Neighbours at the next society meet. And that’s enough to shame, believe me.

Lecturer Love
There’s always plenty going on at the Durham rumour mill. Do something scandalous and your friends will know about it before you can even remember the gory details yourself.

Lecturers are no exception to the healthy circulation of ‘who’s snogging who’. And, rumour has it, some of the things you hear are actually true. Yep, lecturer loving has been known to go on in Durham. Every department has its 40-odd teaching Casanova and every year a couple of girls fall for their intellectual charms. Whether they get the object of their affection to fall with them is unknown…but the grape vine declares a resolute ‘yes’.

There are some great stories about Durham girls (yes, sorry, it does always tend to be the ladies pulling lecturers) and the lengths they’ll go to bag their crumblies. Love letters, Valentine’s cards, wedding blasters (to you and me, that’s a massive party popper filled with confetti inside) in their face…Durham lecturers have seen it all.

NOTE: If you decide the older, wiser man is for you, be warned that you’re just as likely to get a fail out of it as you are a first. There are no stories of lecturers marrying their students here.

The Rah couple
You already know what they look like (pearls, pashmina, hair similar to that of a mangled cat) but what are the posh folk of Durham here for? What do they actually do?

They don’t need the degree, that’s for sure. Not with all of daddy’s business contacts. But you can’t buy love, or so the saying goes, so what better place to go searching for Tarquin/Henrietta than the first university for privately educated Oxbridge rejects? Rah couples can often be seen strolling down the Bailey/’yahing’ in the street/enjoying coffee at Hollathans. They’ll look like they’ve stepped straight out of a sailing catalogue - a picture of perfection - until you cop them later that night, making a scene in Klute’s VIP section.

Unfortunately, rah individuals are usually off limits for the likes of us mere mortals. If your blood bleeds red then there’s not much you can do to break into their infamous circle. Without money or a plummy accent, there’s little you can offer those who enjoy the finer things in life. However, if you’re determined to be shallow and bag a rich husband/wife, you can always do the dreadfully clichéd ‘wannabe rah’ look (dress as above, keep mouth shut) and hope for the best.

The last-minute mad dash
For some of us university has flown by and we’re now on our last weary legs. Third/Fourth year has arrived, books are suddenly important things and, most worryingly, the settling down bug has become an epidemic.

Some of us accept that a Durham love affair is not meant to be. We console ourselves with the thought that our ‘one’ is bound to crop up on our post-grad/gap year/internship, and begrudgingly get on with that smelly thing called studying. Others just aren’t prepared to give up the dream. Instead, it’s time for drastic action - to (unwisely) go out every night, get pissed and chase after anybody who so much as looks their way.

If they manage to find a similarly desperate being then everybody’s happy. Until the parties move to opposite ends of the country, leaving nothing to keep them together. It’s rather fruitless to grab on and hope for the best. Many are guilty of doing so, but few will reap the benefits. Your odds are better if you look elsewhere, even with our whopping 72% success rate. It is estimated that around a third of Durham graduates get together after graduation anyway. So there’s still hope, even after the crumbly old age of 21/22.

And that’s an indication, dear fresher, that you can just stuff the whole lot of this article, and have craploads of fun instead.