Lena Minford has been engaged since the summer before Freshers’ week, so why aren’t you?

Some people think uni is the time to find yourself and some people already have the future planned out.

Lena Elizabeth Minford is a 3rd Year Film Studies student here at Queen’s and she’s been engaged to her fiancé Andrew the whole time she’s been here.

I was interested to find out how the hell she makes that work, but then, my long distance relationship completely – and quite luckily – imploded when I moved to university in only a matter of weeks. So here’s what she said when we sat down to talk about it.

How did you meet?

First of all he didn’t know we existed. We went to the same secondary school and we both did business studies. How romantic. We both had a chance to go on a trip to London. So the first time we met was at an airport at six in the morning and I was excited to go to London and he was dying. He was like “why are you even awake?” and I was just like, “London, London, London.”

At the time I was actually going out with someone else and all my friends were like “he fancies you” and I was like, “No he doesn’t, that’s weird”. So when I came home and actually broke up with the person I was with, he [Andrew] added me on Facebook and we just started talking.

And the rest was history… so how long have you been together now?

We will be together five years come November.

How did he propose?

Well it was over two years ago. I wanted to wait until I left school. So it was the summer between meeting all my A-Level results and going to uni. To be honest, everyone always expects this really romantic story, but we kind of had this mutual agreement that we were like, well we know we want to stay together, so let’s get engaged.

And we did have this romantic walk on the beach, but it was more like a mutual agreement that we wanted to stay together and that was the next step.

What are people’s general reactions when you tell them you’re engaged?

Well initially I thought the vast majority of people my age would think I was pregnant. But actually not a lot of people did that. One person made a joke about it but that was it. Now at uni people are just excited for me.

And the other thing as well, like last night I was on a pub crawl and if people are having a flirt with you, you don’t want to say, “Oh sorry, I’m engaged”. You’d look like a complete weirdo.

What was it like as a fresher being engaged when everyone was pulling on a night out? Was it weird?

Not really. People treat me exactly the same, but I guess they acted really surprised, “Oh you’re engaged. I didn’t know that.” But I didn’t want that to be my first line, like, “Hi, I’m Beth, I’m engaged.”

I didn’t feel like it was any different. If I wasn’t engaged, I’m not sure I would be going out and pulling anyway, it’s not really me. It’s just not my thing, so I don’t think if I was single that I would be acting much different really.

Do you go out much now?

Oh yeah. Yeah, I do. It wouldn’t be my first line when I go out anywhere. Like last night I was on a pub crawl, so there’s nothing really different about my experience at uni. Except that I’m in a relationship. I’d say it was the same as someone who was in a steady relationship with someone else. It hasn’t really affected me in any bad way.

People usually say that uni is the time to find yourself and experiment. Do you feel like you’ve missed out on that?

No, not really to be honest. I completely agree uni is a time for finding yourself and figuring out who you are as a person. Not necessarily who you are as a partnership. But I feel like a lot of people box people into relationships. So for me it’s Beth and Andy and not Beth anymore. I am a person in my own right.

But I feel like he would support me enough if I felt like I’d missed out on something. But I don’t feel like I have, and if I needed to have that conversation with him, it would be fine.”

You’ve already got the end game that other people are trying to find. Does that give you a peace of mind?

This is the thing though, there’s nothing wrong with people flirting with each other, but at the same time it’s nice to be like, I’m going home to someone. And I’m comfortable with that. A flirt is a flirt, but it gets to a point when I’m like, I’m not interested anymore, I’m going home.

And it’s nice to feel like I’m going out and making this effort for yourself and someone’s complimenting you, but at the same time, I’m like, “No but I like going home to what I have.”

Beth and Andy have set the date for 18th March 2017.