I'm a ride-or-die fan of Off Campus . It was always going to happen this way.

As a card-carrying member of the fangirl community, I knew I would be swept up in the rampant fever of hockey boys and sexy scenes and buzzy songs. That I'd probably wind up like Cristina Yang yelling "somebody sedate me" when I entered my [redacted] hour of consuming TikTok edits.

But I didn't expect to be so invested in the discourse surrounding the show's success.

Several ye olde news outlets have posed the question, "why is everyone obsessed with Off Campus?" and I have to say the answer is astoundingly simple.

Watch: How the Off Campus boys bonded on set. Post continues below.

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How the Off Campus boys bonded on set | The Spill

These men actually like the women they're pursuing.

I'm not here to say this show is the most groundbreaking television series to be released since The Sopranos. But it's deeply captivating for all the divas out there with a proclivity to crush on fictional men.

It's fun. It's make-believe.

The success of Off Campus and the allure of Garrett Graham comes down to one undeniable factor: this show is bringing to life people's most steadfast, sheepish dating desires.

It's the kind of thing you dream will happen to you when you're in High School and you view adulthood through the lens of your favourite romantic comedies — the idea that you'll grow up and become the object of someone else's yearning.

It's the enduring allure of being lovable "just as you are" — like Bridget Jones. And if we're all being honest with ourselves, did we ever really relinquish that dream?

That's our captain and romantic diva, Garrett Graham. Image: Prime Video.

That the captain of the hockey team would catch you belting out the lyrics to Elton John and think "wow, she's charming."

That a bunch of university athletes would sit around at practice and passionately discuss their captain's crush on you. That they'd have orgasm discourse while hitting the gym and talk about how important it is for women to feel safe in sexual settings.

That they'd be sweet and kind and earnestly in love with you (and that each of their friends, in turn, would follow a similar head-over-heels romantic trajectory).

It's a complete and total fantasy — to the point you may as well be watching Lord of the Rings for how out of the realm of reality it is.

It's not just a fantasy in the sense that Garrett, Dean, Logan, and Tucker are fictional and don't exist in the real world, but that large groups of men like them don't seem to exist at all. Not in our shared experience — at least, that's what I'm seeing reflected in my everyday conversations with young women.

I'm not being so cynical as to suggest that #theboys out there don't actually like their partners (although, for a large enough cohort of men, that statement rings true). I'm saying this specific kind of romantic utopia doesn't seem to exist away from the screen or the pages of our favourite romance novels.

It's the dream. Image: Prime Video.

Where multiple, interconnected romantic stories work out perfectly for a group of pals.

That's why the Chestnut Springs book series by Elsie Silver has taken over social media. Why Windy City by Liz Tomforde is coming to Netflix. Why every girl on TikTok is demanding a third book in Ali Hazelwood's Bride series.

These stories are unrealistic; the perfect antidote for young women existing within a toxic dating culture.

It's deeply funny — in the way that it isn't — to see certain men constantly compare reading romance novels or binging shows like this to "watching porn" (they love to call everything "smut" without any real understanding of what "smut" is).

In reality, shows like Off Campus are successful because they are a complete and total work of fiction that play into women's truest desires.

For old crones like me, it's a whimsical stroll down "youthful optimism lane" where life could have looked like this if everything about the world was different (and you were also friends with the hockey team at an American college).

For the young women living through these years in real time, shows like this are a lifeline. Because having a little crush on a dude who doesn't exist can actually be so thrilling. Certainly more so than opening Hinge.

And so each day, I'm thinking of this man I'll never know. The likes of which I'll never meet. With all the fondness of a wartime widow staring wistfully out the window.

Garrett Graham, gone but never forgotten.

Feature Image: Off Campus.