Comment Editor Lara Bevan-Shiraz chats to Dr Alon Aviram, couples therapist and KCL alumnus, to get you set for romantic success!
So, you’ve just left Fresher’s Fair clutching goodies from eager society reps, this paper one of them. The campus maze is dizzying, and it’s quite likely that in the sea of new faces one has caught your eye—if not yet, soon. Arriving at uni, I had considered myself immune, but by the end of the academic year, I had “flirty eggs” according to family idiom, my hormones set on derailing plans for a fuss-free university experience. Scanning across crisp linen covered tables and animated diners holding sparkling wine glasses at the Diplomacy Ball, looking mostly at the flower arrangements, my gaze settled on a vaguely familiar profile and glinting black specs.
Entering uni, we are dropped into the deep end. But as we begin to navigate the practicalities of our newfound autonomy, we make it complicated for ourselves. Dr Alon Aviram says: “Many people enter relationships as if they’re jumping into a swimming pool—thrilling, refreshing, and full of promise—without first checking whether they can truly swim together.” This article, pooling expert advice and my first-year experiences, will give you a few tools to (hopefully) minimise your (or rather your ex’s) Kleenex budget. Let’s take it step by step.
1. The First Encounter
Our hormones send us careering towards romance because it’s hard wired into us. Sure, we might feel like we’re in that in-between stage between childhood and adulthood, but our biology tells us otherwise. As Dr Aviram says, “this mismatch between biology’s urgency and psychology’s pacing is one of the quiet tensions of adulthood.” That’s why, when a tall, well-groomed suit-wearer walks past Ina* as we’re in line for the cloakroom at the ball, she’ll watch after him pensively and say: “I could have gotten his number”, even though she’s just picked up another penguin’s contact. And, whilst we’re on the theme of penguins, it’s why Cecilia* frequents every black-tie event—even though she’s not dating, just appreciating.
Not everyone’s motivations are the same. Sebastian*, in his pursuit of “the one”, will test the waters with every female acquaintance, hoping for a spark, but does he do this because he’s a flirt, or because he’s been told by society that having a girlfriend is a marker of social success? Conall* has re-downloaded a dating app and found a match, something his friends have nudged him to do for long enough that he’s relented. Having a relationship is seen as the given, even—or especially—by those who aren’t in one. The non-dater can be the nosiest pepper, jalapeño business. Cecilia has set herself on the straight and narrow, but she’s almost set for a career in matchmaking too.
2. First Dates
Now you’ve tripped over some words and landed at “would you like to get lunch?” Stylistic choices and location, I’ll leave to you, but here are a few conversation topics to get you started. “Sustaining a relationship over time requires more than the excitement of the dive”, according to Dr Aviram. “Early in a relationship—especially one where both partners value their individuality—certain conversations act like a kind of preventive medicine.”
Discuss the “compass points that guide your life”, Dr Aviram suggests. “What matters most to you? Freedom? Stability? Ambition? Spirituality?” As psychotherapist and author Philippa Perry notes in the BBC visual podcast Rylan: How to Be in Love, a “shared sense of reality” grounds your relationship, not a shared set of interests. My boyfriend played his cards right teaching me Pesten, a Dutch card game, and I fell for the playful intellectual stimulation, only later realising where our approaches to life needed to harmonise. (See @GettothePointBro’s hilariously on point TikTok ‘Dating a Girl Who is Used to Being Alone is Very Hard’).
Dr Aviram recommends discussing money early on. You don’t need to compare bank statements, rather explore each other’s perspectives: “do you see it as something to be saved for security, or enjoyed in the present?” Use the bill at the end of a lunch date to gently open this tangent. You might find some comical cultural anecdotes ensue—the prix fixe menu always appeals to my Dutch boyfriend’s frugality, whereas I’ll enjoy my meal out and then budget accordingly.
On culture—King’s has a 2:3 ratio of International to UK students, so it’s not unlikely you and your date will have different cultural backgrounds too. “Mixed-heritage couples often inhabit a space that is both expansive and complex, drawing on a rich buffet of perspectives, traditions, and ways of thinking” says Dr Aviram, to “infuse a relationship with colour, depth, and resilience… and weave a shared culture that didn’t exist before”. That’s not to say that there won’t be challenges. Dr Aviram expands: “unspoken assumptions remain invisible until a moment of friction brings them sharply into focus. That’s why it’s so valuable to name and compare assumptions early and often, not as a critique but as an act of curiosity.”
Set relationship boundaries before they become issues, regardless of how silly or awkward it might feel—an actor doesn’t learn lines upon stepping onstage in front of a full house. You can use newspaper articles as a way into tricky conversations surrounding consent and safety, such as the Guardian’s exposé of the dangerous rise of choking when establishing no-go zones. Seek out healthy advice and be a magpie, carefully considering what resonates as you build that relational toolkit. Be confident in setting boundaries on pace, time, and attention. Couples who take longer to get to know each other before exploring more serious physicality tend to stay together longer, according to Dr Tara Swart in another episode of Rylan: How to Be in Love.
3. Getting to Know You
As you spend more time together, you’ll also come up against the bits of each other that challenge you. “Gender dynamics are undeniably present in relationships, but they rarely operate in isolation”, says Dr Aviram. “They’re intertwined with culture, family upbringing, personal temperament, and life experience, shaping the way each person shows up in the partnership.” Enter, “mankeeping”. Whilst this generation may be exploring the lexicon of mental wellbeing, stereotypes of masculinity mean that men’s social circles aren’t keeping up. This lands the emotional burden at the feet of weary girlfriends. Men seeking mothering (intentionally or not) isn’t new—hence, housewives—but this constriction of healthy outlets is worsening. Men are “getting in touch with their feelings” by offloading on the women around them—romantic partners to the greater extent, but also female friends.
There’s a wider mismatch between words and actions, even by men who consider themselves allies. Actions can’t be performative, nor selective. Doing the dishwasher after coming round for dinner is great, but expecting praise or anything other than a verbal “thanks” (for the bare minimum expected) kind of takes the shine off that soap bubble you’ve been riding.
When these challenges escalate, we react often on instinct. “Conflict style is revealing”, says Dr Aviram. “Under stress, do you seek closeness, conversation, and reassurance, or do you prefer solitude to process your thoughts?” Whilst it’s a conversation you can have early on, our stress responses are often only properly revealed once we are comfortable enough to share them.
“Traditional socialisation has often led men to value action over emotional attunement, and women to develop a keener awareness of the emotional undercurrents in an interaction”, Dr Aviram notes. This incongruity creates “predictable moments of friction” which leave both involved with “the quiet ache of feeling unseen” in a malcoordinated “dance of the couple”. Men will “retreat when tensions rise—women, in contrast, stay emotionally present and process issues through dialogue.” Combined, these constructed tendencies create “the ‘pursue–withdraw’ cycle, where one partner’s retreat fuels the other’s pursuit, escalat[ing] until both feel misunderstood and unsafe.”
However, Dr Aviram caveats that such gendered divides are “far from universal”. Rather, all couples encounter what Dr Aviram calls the “three pillars of tension, universal push-and-pull forces that define all intimate bonds:
- “Safety versus freedom—balancing the comfort of security and the need for personal autonomy.
- “Enmeshed versus disengaged—remain[ing] connected without dissolving the boundaries that protect individuality.
- “Stability versus novelty—the rhythm between the grounding force of predictability, and the invigorating energy of change.
“The health of the relationship often depends on how consciously and collaboratively that navigation is done”, says Dr Aviram. In this sense, the Golden Rule is a good start, but the Platinum one is better—consider the needs of your partner rather than offering what you find easiest to give, reciprocally. “Ask yourself if you know how you want to be loved, and whether you can express that in a way your partner can understand and respond to”, Dr Aviram advises. “Consider whether you can embrace your partner’s differences without feeling the urge to mould them into your image, and whether you are ready to sometimes place their needs on equal footing with your own”.
This also extends to allowing parallel development, not unison. In a strong relationship, “each person maintains their own friendships, passions, and inner life”, Dr Aviram says, “knowing that their separateness enriches rather than endangers the relationship.” Echoing Kahlil Gibran’s “let there be spaces in your togetherness”, Dr Aviram precises: “the boundaries between self and other are respected, yet porous enough for empathy to flow freely.” Whilst conflict may arise, “a healthy relationship isn’t defined by the absence of conflict or challenge”, Dr Aviram qualifies. It is defined rather “by the living, breathing quality of connection that threads through the ordinary moments as much as the extraordinary ones, and by the capacity to restore that thread when it frays.”
“Conflict, like cholesterol, comes in both harmful and beneficial forms” says Dr Aviram. “Beneficial conflict stays tethered to the specific issue, holds the dignity of both people intact, and operates on the shared assumption that each partner is invested in finding a way forward.” When things go awry, in or out of the relationship, consider whether you are pulling together or taking swipes at each other. “Apologies are not mechanical gestures or strategies to move past discomfort”, for Dr Aviram. “They are moments of genuine reckoning, an acknowledgment of the other’s lived reality, paired with a willingness to repair in action as well as in words.” Ensuring that such restorative dialogue is evenly weighted is essential, and voicing issues should never be punished through sulking or hijacking. As the therapist and author Terry Real says, if your partner comes to you with a concern: “you’re at the customer service window.”
“Over time, this pattern of rupture and repair deepens the bond rather than eroding it”, Dr Aviram explains. “Resentments don’t calcify; wounds become stitched as points of growth rather than permanent divides.” Healthy couples view conflict not in adversarial terms, rather seeking to “co-create a shared rhythm for handling conflict”, says Dr Aviram.“Real durability doesn’t come from avoiding storms altogether; it comes from having a shared umbrella and the steady commitment to hold it together when the rain begins to fall.”
4. Happily Ever After, or at Least No Regrets
Maintaining open communication won’t automatically smooth every bump in your relationship pathway, as evidenced above. Nevertheless, “the couples who tend to navigate it best are those who enter the journey with a solid foundation” says Dr Aviram: “a relationship already equipped with healthy communication, mutual respect, and the ability to collaborate under pressure.” Your first year at uni will be full of big jumps. Take this one in steps comfortable for you.
* Of course, names have been altered and scenarios hammed up for comedic effect!
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