So you really want a love affair with your supervisor?

It's a loud room, bustling with excitement, palpable with sweat, they offer to top up your wine glass and begin asking you where you’re from, and you eventually pluck up the courage to shout above the crowd "hey, I don’t usually do this, but can I have your crsid?"… (i.e it is matriculation dinner, and the only available lotharios are the academics.)

So it's Week 3. You’ve now realised that the dating prospects in Cam are slim to none, but happily you will soon find out that there is a vast untapped resource, which you have never considered.

When you really have tried every avenue…

Cantabs are like a good wine, they get better with age; right now they are shamelessly trying to break into the edG scene of Turf and relentlessly sharing profile pictures of themselves fulfilling the most nanoscopic of roles, of assistant to the assistant to the assistant in a ‘thing’ they are in… but picture these specimens 25 years from now, less hair but less BS too. You can definitely manage some tweed, the occasional briefcase and their consistent plugging of their books, these aren’t cautionary red flags, these are the red flag to the torero bull, keep charging forward!

This sound technique will never fail you: when relationships inevitably go sour, you won’t have to worry about spotting them in Cindies or bumping into them in Sains at the olive section, you literally never have to see them again, because who even goes to the History Fac anyway?!

Whether they are as hot as a potato is actually irrelevant. Like everything else, your HSPS friends will keep reminding you, beauty is a social construct, age is a social construct, everything is a social construct; except for getting a 2:2 – remember folks, good looks are transient, unlike your essay deadlines.

Don’t heed the advice of those who simply don’t understand; when your wise mother instructs you "don’t shit where you eat", ignore this insightful proverb – and enter into a mixing of business and pleasure, as your essays are a royal turd anyway.

That heartwarming look of love

And even if your supervisor has the social capacities of a spoon, can’t give you direct eye contact, and sits almost 12 yards away from you, have no fear; you can simply try a new one each term, and have an 8 week fling, which nobody has to even know about, including your supervisor! You spend 1 hour a week together, which is precisely 0.59% of their time – practically an ice age when you compare this to all the fleeting hookups in Life (the club and the concept.) People, they cannot leave you, it is a guaranteed 8 week relationship!!…. hello rising self esteem!

So slide into their DMs, drop them a cheeky Hermes, and ask… a variety of "you up"/"wyd"/"what time is best for the supervision?" And since Hermes is basically BBM, you have to endlessly pour over your messages with your friends; do you sign off with Best wishes or Regards? No, no, definitely Kind Regards, that shows him you're kind, and have regards! [obvi]

Party for one? No more!!

By the way, your degree is called the ‘TRIpos’!! Surely it is encouraged to ‘try’ all the different and potential avenues for success; you have tried to complete the reading list, you have tried to pull an all-nighter in the library, and so you must try to solidify an affair with your supervisor, as the last ditch attempt to save your degree!

So the date is set.. a weekly slot, one on one, sober, where you discuss your thoughts, feelings and ideas – and then your self-esteem is consequently ripped to shreds, sounds like a totes healthy relationship to moi!

And as we all know, from the wonderful Alan Bennet, "the transmission of knowledge is itself an erotic act." What could be more erotic than discussing the inflated death rates of the Black Death – you tell me. They will begin to share their most intimate preferences with you, their carnal desires, such as you submitting your essay in size 12 font, with double spacing and page numbers in the right hand corner. Just like the Christian Grey of Cambridge, he echoes “My desires are unconventional”, as he insists that you write in Comic Sans.

[no context necessary]

They see you at your best and your worst, they watch you grow, you both share what is important to you. Say it with me now, you are in a relationship, and you do not need to specify its nature to anyone!