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Student relationships

Is university a singleton’s game, or an ideal opportunity to prove your commitment? Condor Properties finds out.

For many freshers, the start of university can be something of a crossroads in a relationship. Do you sacrifice your weekends and play the long distance game or sever your ties and play the field? Make a rash decision and you could lose the love of your life, don’t and you could miss the best opportunity you’ll ever have to be footloose and fancy free.

Of course Condor Properties can’t tell you what the best course of action is for your relationship. But for those currently in this dilemma, we chatted to some old clients of ours to find out what they did. Perhaps their decisions will help ensure you don’t make the same mistakes or confirm what deep down you already knew.

“Never again will you have the same opportunity to meet so many single people and best of all, they’re usually drunk,” says Henry Courtney, a former student in Cardiff. “I wasn’t about to pass up that opportunity so I finished my relationship and spent the next three years having the time of my life.”

Henry, incidentally, is still single.

Sam Hall, a former student in Liverpool, wishes he’d thrown in the towel: “I spent the first two years at university in a relationship with my girlfriend, who was studying in Leeds,” he told Condor Properties.

“We gave up our weekends and spent hours on the phone together but in the end we both resented it because our friends seemed to be having so much fun. Our relationship failed in the end and I wished we’d made a clean break earlier.

“I had so many opportunities to get with some stunning women and now I’m kicking myself.”

Typically, it seems the girls have shown more commitment; Sophie Tatham, a student in Exeter made her relationship work with long term boyfriend, Tom.

“It wasn’t easy but I knew I loved him and we just made it work,” she says. “Now we’re married and I appreciate seeing him so much more having done the long distance thing.”

Meanwhile, Lauren Crompton found that going to a different university to her partner actually enhanced the student experience. “I was studying in Bristol while my boyfriend was at Exeter University,” she says. “We had a great time going out in each other’s towns and meeting their friends; he lived with a great bunch of people and we still hang out now.”