To the bright eyes, bushy tailed freshers just arriving in Bristol, let me tell you, this city brims with possibility: every corridor, bus ride, and sweaty dance floor is a potential setting for your grand romantic story or, perhaps, a humiliating anecdote to tell your friends. Still, the hunt for love continues. So, here is where you could (or could not) meet your soulmate at Bristol uni. Best of luck all, war is hell.
Lectures
Nothing says romance like a bleary-eyed 9am seminar on the ethics of late stage capitalism. You sit across the room, nursing a Senate latte. They raise their hand, playing devil’s advocate in a debate on whether utilitarianism could justify cannibalism, and suddenly….your heart flutters. You bond over your shared appreciation of Simone de Beauvoir, only to realise later they haven’t actually read her, just asked for a summary from ChatGPT. The eye contact is there, the cheeky intellectual sparring feels like foreplay. In reality, they ignore you in the library later that day, headphones in, locked into a Joe Rogan podcast.
Wills
The secular Gothic interior of Wills providing a frankly cinematic backdrop for a romantic tale, set against the low hum of snotty noses and creaky chairs. You, dressed in charity shop knitwear and fingerless gloves, play the mysterious femme fatale, reading Nietzsche in the corner (heavily annotated, of course). He takes a seat in the adjacent booth, gazing longingly from afar, wondering if you’re actually reading that or just pretending to. You make uncomfortable amounts of eye contact, you never speak. The tension is palpable. You return to that seat every day in hopes he will appear again. He never resurfaces. You see him with his girlfriend a week later. Killer.
Hinge
I have actually heard many a Hinge success story, which continues to baffle me. Worth a shot? They can’t be any worse than the men you already know.
Daisy’s
You lock eyes from across the smoking area through a haze of kiwi-guava-watermelon-sweaty rugby man-VK-armpit mist, wade through a sea of sports night socials to meet under the neon strobe lights as Love Story blares in the background. He’s in a toga, you’re painted red. This must be it. He must be the one. You wake up to a “wys” text. Ah, and they say romance is dead. You see him in broad daylight three weeks later only to realise perhaps he wasn’t as attractive as he first seemed when it was dark and you were seven double vodka redbulls in. Funny that.
Steps of the ASS library
A modern-day Cinderella in the trenches of exam season, you leave your UCard on the desk, your knight in shining canterbury’s sprints after you, dodging highly caffeinated undergrads in an attempt to reach his princess. On the steps of the ASS, surrounded by weeping students and discarded meal deal packages, he returns your card. You smile and thank him. It’s the most intimate exchange you’ve had in months.
The U1
Your hands brush on the railings of the stairs, you giggle nervously, partly from the cherry VK sloshing around in your stomach and partly from the fact your mate is projectile vomiting onto the floor, then tragedy strikes. As the bus grinds to a halt, he stumbles off at Wills, his Polo Ralph Lauren gilet glistening in the bus headlights. Rah. If you can move past the accent and the signet ring, you’re set for life. Try not to punch him when he says he’s “not that rich”, and you’ll be guaranteed a life of summer holidaying at the chateau in France and tears in the Alps as he screams “YOU’RE NOT DOING IT RIGHT” whilst you plummet down a mountain with two wooden planks attached to your feet. Bliss.
The Downs
You’re reading One Day by David Nicholls, wondering when it’s your turn to be yearned after. You spot him under a tree, performatively reading Wuthering Heights. He hasn’t turned the page in over an hour. He tells you he knows a spot. It’s Vittoria. Very underground. He orders a Dildo Baggins, of course, and talks about his dodgy opinions on third-wave feminism. He tells you you’re so mysterious and intriguing, you only seem that way because he hasn’t asked you a question about yourself in 45 minutes. You miss toga man from Daisy’s.
Padel society
The mecca of corporate baddies. Every boy here studies economics and has a grad scheme lined up in London. He’ll undoubtedly take you on a date to a small plates restaurant where you’ll be served by a waiter with a handlebar moustache and a forest green beanie who tells you they do things “a little differently here”. Padel man pretends to understand wine pairings and makes you feel stupid because you aren’t getting “stone fruits” or “sweaty muddy leather” on the nose.
