My Great University Love
As another Valentine's Day comes around, Lucy Atkin reflects on the importance of friendship-love, and its liberatory & restorative power in our lives.
Lucy Atkin
It is easy to look back on your time at university and think about what you could have done differently. As I near the end of my final year, I have found myself doing so more and more often and typically coming up against one question: should I have found great romantic love at university?
I am sure most people thought, before coming to university, that there was at least the possibility of walking away from their degree with the person they were going to marry. It seems that, especially for women, the value of almost any experience is tied to its ability to produce a relationship. However, what I will take away is that I am leaving having found love: an inexplicable love for my friends.
Finding genuine romantic fulfilment is hard. As seems to be the case with most things under capitalism, putting yourself out there romantically feels like you are trying to sell yourself as the best option, constantly in competition with a seemingly endless cast of interesting, attractive, and desirable people. Just one brief look at my straight male friend’s Hinge is enough to feel inadequate. Suddenly all of the women that I would have otherwise thought looked wonderful felt like people I could never compete with. This atmosphere of competition permeates almost every aspect of this university, from the academic ranking to social interactions. The smoking areas of clubs are often seen as opportunities for networking, and some interactions leave you feeling like you have been scouted for your ‘potential’ as a future friend in a high place.
However, it is through genuine friendships that we can find resistance to this culture. I find that, when I fall into this cycle of feeling inadequate, it is my friends that pull me out of it. Whether it is through a gentle offer of a cup of tea, a hug after a long day, or dancing around someone’s room, my friends constantly remind me that who I am is not tied to how I compare with others. Friendship is not about competition, it is about loving others and allowing others to love you. We need our friends to feel sane, to feel ourselves.
In recent years, the notion of self-care has been thrown around a lot as a solution to feeling lost. When we think of self-care, we’re not really thinking of Audre Lorde’s notion of radical self-care, one which is a way to preserve yourself amongst a world that threatens your identity and community. Instead, we’re referring to the individualised notion of self-care that is sold to us as liberatory. We are told that ‘self-care’ is having a bath, taking time for yourself, and telling a friend in need that ‘you are at emotional capacity’ and hence unable to help them. We are supposed to be able to pick ourselves up without the help of others, perhaps only needing to buy things to feel better. Of course we all need time alone, and sometimes we have to take measures to protect our mental health, but I would argue that true self-care does not come from isolating your struggles from other people. Coming together to help one another, putting yourself second, and spending time with people because you love them not because you want something from them, is vital to combating this culture of individualism. This will challenge the misery that thrives so easily, especially at this university. We cannot always be expected to pick ourselves up, especially not alone.
It might seem frivolous to speak of the importance of friendship considering the tumultuous political landscape, and perhaps I would do better to focus my thoughts on the German idealism that my Philosophy degree requires me to trawl through - but friendship is not a frivolous topic at all. My degree has been hard and I simply could not have got through it without the strength my friends give me. I would even go as far as to say all I have learnt from my degree pales in comparison to that which I have learnt from my friends. Their interest in life as well as their kind and intelligent perspectives on the world continually shape me beyond what my degree can offer.
Not only do friendships play a fundamental role in our lives, but friendship, and the values that come with it, can equally be a political concept. When I look at the current political landscape it seems clear that it is so chronically devoid of care for others. Valuing friendships is one of the most important steps in fostering a culture in which we do not see ourselves as individuals trying to reach the top of some ladder, but rather as social beings who are reliant on others for happiness and a sense of self.
So, whilst there is so much fulfilment that comes from romantic love - and great romantic love and friendship often go hand in hand - not having found the ‘one’ at university is not a cause for despair. Indeed, perhaps if less time had been spent with friends bemoaning ‘dry spells’, more initiative might have been taken to try and find partners (or at least some action), but this is not something I would change. The love I have found from my friends has elevated every aspect of my life, and for this I am so grateful.