POV of a typical Leeds University student on Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day in Leeds can feel like a plethora of awkwardness; every restaurant and pub in the city is promoting their menus to couples, when all you really want to do is have a small plates night with your best mate.

It doesn’t help that now you have just entered your twenties, which means when you go on Instagram, you will see a new couple surfacing your stories, or god forbid, someone from secondary buying their first house with their boyfriend. It’s a weird time, but just because your hinge isn’t linking up properly doesn’t mean you should feel alone in your singleness.

So here’s a POV of the life of a Leeds student on Valentine’s Day, completely made up, we promise.

9am

You wake up, you attempted to attend Fruity’s last night, but you felt sick by your second Buz Ball. Thankfully, drunk you remembered to take off their makeup with a wipe that is now sitting on your bedside table as hunched over as you are. You check your phone to see that your friend still went to Fruitys, and they got with a man (?) from their sports soc. You feel their shame through the screen, and then you see the date, February 14th, christ.

10am

You go downstairs to see the damage from last night, thankfully it’s not too bad. The postman knocks and hands over a box bouquet, which is for your housemate, not you, and ten other parcels that aren’t yours and that people will not collect.

12pm

Your mum calls you, hoping for an itinerary for tonight, when you tell her that you have absolutely no plans, she proceeds to tell you that by your age, she was married with a house and two kids. You make an excuse to end the call, and think about your life choices as you walk through Hyde Park.

1pm

You go to Brotherton because you think romanticising uni will help with today. Your trench coat gets stuck in the card barriers, and you can’t find a seat. Finally, when you sit down in the reading room, you look up to see your first year situationship staring you in the eyes. You feel like Bridget Jones, as you awkwardly look away and try to pay attention to the 50-page reading you have to do for your seminar.

3pm

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After an agonising time in there, you go on a walk to clear your head. The book you needed for your dissertation is on loan, and Eduroam isn’t working.

5pm

You decide to go home after what feels like eternity, and so you can walk through Hyde Park while it’s light enough. Unfortunately, halfway through it’s pitch black, and now you have to dodge every silent biker and Uber Eats robot until you can finally see a street light again. You feel unsafe, so you can’t even listen to your (now sad) Harry Styles playlist since you’ve started mourning the possibility of Manchester tickets.

6pm

You’re sitting in the living room, you haven’t gone on Hinge all day because that just feels embarrassing right now, when you check, you have one like from a 27-year-old whose job description is “business”. Yeah, you delete the app for the millionth time and decide that you’re going to have a proper Galentine’s night.

7pm

After one Rudy’s and two canned cocktails (thank you, Aldi), you watch Sex and the City and try to forget about the festivities. You get a phone notification, and it’s your ex-boyfriend wishing you a happy Valentine’s Day. Christ, maybe you are Carrie Bradshaw? The phone gets thrown into a sofa crease as you think about every embarrassing thing you’ve ever done.

9pm

As your housemate forces you to watch Love Island, you watch everyone from the living room window walk to and from dates; you can’t tell whether you are jealous or not, but they are doused in rain, so maybe you aren’t.

11pm

After perfecting the perfect position on the sofa with the heated blanket you stole from your housemate (sorry Alexis), you decide the day is done. You go to bed and try to read for pleasure, which you find uni has made impossible. You hear something and look up, your neighbours have decided to remind you how single you are. You play a podcast as loud as possible as you attempt to unhear whatever that was.

We hope this has made you feel a bit less lonely in your singleness, or even better!

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