Meet the Youngboi: The baby-faced student who gets all the girls

Cast your eye over any uni charity fashion show. You'll see the usual crop of rugby boys and privately educated wannabe lawyers, but nestled in-between the tired tropes of Russell group uni laddos a star has been born. Get ready for the rise of the youngboi.

For a minute you wonder if cheekbones so impeccably sculpted and skin so clear Proactiv could reasonably monetise it is fair on the rest of the uni boy population: Those boys whose entire identity is predicated on what drugs they take, how many Darkfruits they consume a week, what sport they play, or how much they cry to The 1975.

You don't know if, beneath the bagginess of his array of long-sleeved tops, he's managed to acquire any muscle, but you want to. If he were gay, he'd be what you call a twink. But he's not gay, and that hint of femininity doesn't get in his way – if anything it makes him all the more powerful.

The yungboi is not just a body type, it's a movement

Let’s be honest, you’re a bit sick of edgy litbois who think ketamine is a personality trait. The yungboi has always been there, comfortably in the shade of his more alpha mates’ braggadocio, but only now have you begun to notice him. It’s his time and – quite frankly – he should get it while the getting is good, because soon you’ll start to feel a bit weird getting with a boy who could feasibly pass as a sixth-former at prom.

Not only does he have perfect skin, he understands what to do with his facial hair

Up until now, facial hair on uni boys has fallen into two categories: The former is a full-on beard they’ve basically had since they were five, while the latter is a collection of face-pubes that more accurately resemble the buttcracks of the former.

The yungboi understands puberty can be a cruel mistress, and opts for a clean shaven look. He knows designer stubble will elude him until his mid-thirties, but he doesn’t let that bother him. Do you know why? Because his skin is so impeccably clear and well moisturised you’d sooner win the lottery than find a blackhead on it.

His baggy clothes don't make him edgy, they make him mysterious

Is the yungboi muscular? Who knows? He definitely doesn’t go to the gym because he has a life – and those nasty callouses would wreak havoc on his pretty porcelain palms. If he does do a sport it’s something low maintenance, like cricket or badminton. While he won’t be throwing you from wall to wall any time soon, but beneath the baggy facade of his invariably long-sleeved top you could be pleasantly surprised to discover that he’s low-key pretty stacked.

He smokes rollies and looks fit at all times when making them

You’ll watch him lick the paper a little too attentively and when he glances up and meets your eye you won’t be thinking about how his smoking habit is the only thing keeping him so slight. You’ll be thinking about how you wish you were that rollie.

He keeps his abode clean because he knows you're coming back

Unlike the sadboi, shagging the yungboi (should you be so lucky) will not require you to tread over a mess of three-week-old dirty clothes. You might peep the odd bucket hat, but you’ll never have to rummage through a sea of synthetics to find your pants the next day. He wouldn’t subject you to coitus under the gaze of a Pulp Fiction poster, or the looming spectre of the tennis girl with her bum out. His posters are framed – he might even have a plant in his room. He would never ever eat there.

He's so sweet and unassuming you just want to mother him

You often worry that a boy so delicately put together could get ravaged by a slight gust of wind, let alone an actual fight with another male. To that end, he must be protected at all costs, or so you think. The yungboi knows what he’s doing, the moment you feel your maternal instincts begin to stir, you’ve already lost. From now until the next full moon, your feelings are at the whim of this whippet thin demigod.

You'll want his eyelashes, but you'll also want his eyelashes

Through sorcery, the yungboi has worked out how to convert jealousy to desirability like it’s some sort of thirst currency. You might briefly flirt with the idea of somehow taking his eyelashes for yourself, and settle with just trying to get with him. The cycle is cruel and vicious.

He's very comfortable in his (amazing) skin

While the yungboi won’t shrink to the corners of a football changing room, or look out of place in a group of rugby lads twice his size, he also won’t feel the need to vy for attention to win the approval of The Boys™. The yungboi’s secret weapon is his ability to absolve himself of the dick-swinging contest of male friendships without rolling his eyes at them.

You’ll find him leaning against the bar, not in the centre of the dancefloor waving his top about. This is where you’ll be snared, or even do the snaring. The yungboi doesn’t mind which foot the shoe is on: You can take him or leave him (you’ll take him).

You ignore it when people say he's some kind of man-child

You know he’s not technically a child, because bone structure that symmetrical is not possible on anyone below the age of 18. Still, every time he’s ID’d in the local offie you’re confident would sell a bottle of Smirnoff to a 15-year-old, you find yourself wondering if you should seek help, or give daddies a try.

His interests are arty and you can monopolise that for your Instagram

Is he into football? No – he reads. He’ll take you to an artisan cafe for your first date, a gallery for your second. You’ll put up with it because you think that’s what you want, before you realise that you can’t get as shitfaced in a museum gift shop as you might in a pub watching the rugby – swings and roundabouts.

He has loads of girl mates and you'll have to crush them to get to him

Part of the challenge of attaining the yungboi’s affections is penetrating his harem of girl mates. He studies English, obviously, so he’s surrounded by girls literally all the time. They all fancy him and he’s got with precisely three of them. The girls never joke about it because they all harbour deep regret that they were too drunk to shag him as well as deep resentment that he ever got with the others.

He's sensitive

In keeping with the mystery of his baggy clothes, the youngboi does not send or ask for nudes. Rather than endlessly send bait attempts at flirting over WhatsApp, he’ll have you relinquishing the kind of emotional scarring usually saved for your Notes page before you’ve gone for round two. Talking to him is so intense it's like being in an ASMR video. You thought you were the one mothering him, but you've been had.

You won't be able to stay with him

Eventually you'll get bored of the fact that he's in every charity fashion show your uni puts on, or you'll question whether you're willing to give up bearded men until he finally grows one at 30. Maybe you'll finally get sick of the way that every girl in his seminar acts like his best mate and bin him off for a fuckboy who'll pie you off to your face. Either way, the time of the youngboi will not last, but if there's ever a moment to take a dip in the pool of pristine pretty boys, it's now.

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