By Anna Nicole Rimando

From yearning to yelling, UNSW Love Letters has seemed to stray away from soft-spoken, slow-burn admiration to just… unfiltered, unsolicited emotions. What was once a haven for quiet romantics and hopeful glances across the law library has now evolved – or some might say devolved – into a mix of subcom beef, passive-aggressive rants, and wild calls for “fine shyts” in specific degrees.

Granted, expecting only poetic paragraphs that read like the intro to a coming-of-age film from a Facebook page is idealistic, but God forbid a girl wants to indulge in a little anonymous yearning between her mid-sem crisis scrolls. Instead, I’m confronted with posts that read like a hinge prompt, or a drunk text sent at 3 AM, except they’re public and tagged #36300.

Don’t get me wrong, some of these are kind of funny — emphasis on kind of. But somewhere between “I wanted to save her name in my contacts as heaven on earth, but it was too long, so I abbreviated it” and “ECON1101 digits drop,” we lost the art of anonymous longing. Where there was once subtlety—heartbeats quickened by a stranger’s smile—there’s now blunt thirst disguised as campus-wide inquiries: “does anyone know any ____ fine shyts? hmu if u do,” and “I live for biceps.” It’s giving confidence, sure—but is it giving romance?

Maybe not everything has to be deep. Maybe not every post needs to sound like old Bruno Mars. But still—there was something charming about the yearning. Because sometimes, the love letter was never meant to be replied to—it was just meant to be written. But I guess in the age of DMs and swipes, even that kind of quiet hope feels like a whisper lost in the noise.

UNSW Love Letters isn’t dead. It’s just… in its situationship era

Anna Nicole Rimando is a student from Sydney studying a degree in Social Work. She writes the way she talks: in threes, a little too opinionated, and always an em dash away from a tangent.