Researchers studying COVID-19 have today discovered that the virus poses a particularly deadly threat for student relationships, with those in the vulnerable category ‘long distance’ most at risk.
Although the average mortality rate of the disease remains low, tentative conclusions are that without the anxiety-inducing workload, sense of being trapped in a bubble and lack of ‘quality time’ to spend together, Cambridge student love simply cannot flourish.
Classics student Marcus Atherton, who has just ended his six-month relationship due to self-isolation, told the Porter’s Log: “Now I have more time, I’ve been expected to message my partner once a day asking how they’ve been and I’m just not ready for that level of commitment, especially with no sex in return! Much better off with Homer’s Odyssey and my right hand.”
Atherton’s ex-partner, Timothy Bainbridge-Stewart, has turned to disrupting Zoom supervisions by drinking full bottles of port, in a move described by his friends as ‘precedented’.
Thankfully, Varsity’s Violet column is on hand to offer its ever-helpful advice. “Sometimes to go forwards one must take a self-healing zen walk into the past,” writes Tara Lamp, second year English student and Violet regular. “Why not use this opportunity to channel your pain into art? I find writing an outstanding solace, especially when others read it and I can bat my eyes demurely and say: “What, that? I just knocked that off in a few minutes whilst finishing the dregs of my artisan loose-leaf brew”! And what better than personal experience as your muse? Why not write your own ‘Anna Coronina’ or a ‘Love letter to the love letters I wrote to my love whilst I was in love in Cambridge’?”
The Year Abroad Office has, perhaps surprisingly, taken the initiative and approached the Porter’s Log with a comment. “We are furious,” said their representative, Emma Melon, struggling to hold back tears. “Breaking up relationships was the only part of our remit we consistently achieved! We’re shit at everything else!”