Five things you hear when you’re dating a third year

Judging by many people’s reaction you’d think we were twenty years apart. Here’s five things every first year who’s going out with a third year wants you to stop asking.

1. “I didn’t know you had a younger sister!”

Well then. This is awkward. 18 isn’t a crime people. Nothing legally or morally wrong here.

2. “You have to buy alcohol for her, right?”

Do the maths

These are legal

This comment is in the same vein as “Does she have a fake ID to get her into clubs?” The people that say these things need to realise one fundamental thing: A FIRST YEAR AT UNIVERSITY MEANS YOU ARE AT LEAST EIGHTEEN. That means you can buy alcohol, get into clubs and even get married. It doesn’t mean it will happen, but it’s definitely possible. We’re not saying you and your third year beau should run off and get married, but if you do have the desire to, it’s not impossible.

3. “Better get her home before her curfew!”

Oh it’s 4.25? Best be getting you home

We’re adults. We don’t need curfews. Admittedly, there’s a nine o’clock lecture tomorrow that we do need to go to in order to pass our degree, so we SHOULD be going home. Curfews are enforced by parents, and ours are somewhere else: probably asleep, given the late hour. Besides that, it’s uni- is there any such thing as a curfew? Pretty much everything is open until the small hours and no one actually goes to bed.

4. “She looks about twelve.”

See? We can act our age

She’s not. I refer you to point two. If she’s a first year at university, she’s at least eighteen years old. There’s nothing we can do about looking younger than we are! Some would call it a blessing, and hope that we can maintain this for years to come. You’re just going to mock the person we’re dating because of it? Well then, screw you.

5. “I’m going to tell her dad that you’re perving on his daughter!”

We’ve only been dating a few weeks. Please don’t out us to the parents. And, for the record, it’s not perving. We actually like each other- if you can imagine that. If it gets to the stage of telling the parents, it would be quite nice if, you know, we told them ourselves. As we all know, telling the parents is a quite a step- especially with a relationship at uni. You have that awkward negotiation of moving from casual sex to seeing each other to committed relationship. Please don’t make us skip some of those steps. Parents are pretty damn terrifying.