Love and relationships at Imperial College London

According to this year’s survey data, just 41% of Imperial students are single or “not seeing anyone” exclusively. A surprisingly high 46% of you are in an exclusive relationship at the moment, and 8% are seeing someone but “non-exclusively”.

4% are seeing multiple people (get you), while 1% did not wish to say. So as a group we seem to like our monogamy, but do we love it?

We asked all of you “would you say you are in love?” and 37% of respondents said yes. Most of you haven’t been hit by cupid’s arrow though, with 46% saying no. 3% did not wish to answer this question.

The final 13% of students did not wish to say whether they are in love at the moment, which is fair enough – these figures do include both those in relationships and singletons.

Interestingly, just 69% of those of you in exclusive relationships feel that you are in love. 12% answered “no” (ouch), and 14% said “maybe”. This time 5% did not wish to say.

Maybe distance is getting in the way of things? Of those in relationships, 30% of you are in long-distance relationships, which we all know can be hard.

Looking closer to home though, we asked “are you currently in a relationship with an Imperial student” and 47% of those who answered the question said yes. 50% of you said no, and the remaining 3% did not wish to say.

Out of the total respondents, not just those in relationships, we wondered whether you have ever been in a relationship with an Imperial student in the past – and only 32% said yes.

66% of you have not dated within Imperial (something wrong with us? Not good enough for you?) and 2% did not wish to say (come on guys, it was a pretty straight question this time!).

So where are those of you with an Imperial boyfriend or girlfriend meeting them? The most common place was “in halls”, with 34% of you picking up a partner on your doorstep.

We were glad to see the next most popular was “at a club/society/project” – apparently 22% of you are finding time to reap the benefits of those extracurricular activities.

Your courses are also providing opportunities to meet people, with 17% of respondents pairing up with someone from among their degree coursemates.

12% of you are meeting people “via friends” (kudos to the wingmen/ladies) and 4% at parties outside the Union. Another 4% met their partner at the Union or a Union-hosted event.

Just 2% of you found your girlfriend or boyfriend on a dating or hookup service such as Tinder or OKCupid. Maybe they’re just more suited to one night stands?

We also asked which of these dating apps and websites you’re using. 53% of you claim to have never tried any of these kinds of services, but of those who have given them a shot Tinder was the clear favourite with 43% of respondents having tried out the app.

Despite only 8% of total respondents identifying as homosexual and 9% as bisexual, a whopping 39% of you claim to have had a play with Grindr.

10% of students are on OKCupid and 6% have given Happn a go. Another 8% of you have tried out other apps and sites that we did not manage to list.

One thing Felix always likes to ask you about is your relationships with Hall Seniors. Out of all survey respondents, 4% claim to have had a relationship during first year with a Senior in their own hall and 1% dated a Hall Senior from another hall.

Finally, we asked you all about cheating. 74% of you say you’ve never cheated on a partner (yay!) while 23% are admitting to it (boo!). As usual the last 3% did not wish to say.

On the other side of the coin, 74% again say that to their knowledge they have not been cheated on themselves. Just 18% say they’ve definitely been cheated on and a further 6% think it may have happened but they aren’t sure.

So there you have it, folks – seems like plenty of you are doing pretty well for yourselves. Thanks to all of you for filling out the survey and do come back next year with even more stories for our stats!