He had builder’s arms, a Fiat Panda and as much charm as a toilet brush. The first time I rode the hundred metre trip to Iceland in his Panda, bile-coloured with threadbare seats, he apologised for the poor suspension. “It’s knackered,” he explained jovially, “by tonnes of backseat action.” I was eighteen, naïve and somehow hooked on him for seven months. Two terms of fresher life bloated past on a diet of daydreams and Mars Bars. Third term was the goal: that’s when we’d make it official, I decided. Anticipation mounted. April rolled around. And finally he rolled back. The car was still bile-coloured but a new girl sat on the front seat; she was sixteen and dainty.

It was the start of a three year cycle of student relationships that swung between physical extremes: suffocatingly-close and long-distance cool. For coupled-up students in particular, undergraduate life is far from the bed-hopping, inebriated social mecca stereotype. “Undergraduate life a time of great change in the individual,” says Dr Lesley Perman Kerr, a chartered psychologist. “It’s also a time when there is a need to be selfish, to grow and to achieve. This puts an enormous strain on relationships whether together or apart.”

Relationship difficulties are the third most common reason for visiting a counsellor, according to a survey by University of Edinburgh Student Counselling Service. Of the 849 students that visited the service, 15 per cent cited relationship issues as their primary problem, whilst only one per cent addressed welfare and employment. In a series of candid interviews, former students explain why the grass is never greener whether your partner’s abode is two metres or two hundred kilometres away, and specialist experts help assess whether your relationship can last the distance, or the proximity

Up, close and personal: Cohabiting

Sparking a relationship in halls is simpler than finding jeans in Topshop. Along with the convenience of living seven metres apart comes enforced intimacy with an almost-stranger, under the eye of eighteen other roomies; both during the relationship and after the honeymoon sours.

Vallapa, a postgraduate student from Thailand shares her experience: “Living two floors below Toby meant there was no space for the heart to grow fonder and no room to heal at the end. After my first post-break-up date, (with a guy who loved his own very-loud voice), I went to the kitchen for a toastie, only to hear grunting and bed rattling coming from Toby’s bedroom. Worse, the next morning I bumped into her. I recognised her from one of my classes and managed a conversation about Foucault. But all I really wanted to do was kick her down the stairs.”

If bumping into your ex daily isn’t salt enough on fresh wounds, co-habiting means that the moving-on race is as public as Britney’s pants. In her study of students’ romantic relationships, “Deception, Power and Self-Differentiation,” Tina Blair summarises self-preservation strategies. “Men appear in deceptions that make them seem more committed and financially successful to women. Women engage in deceptions that make them more desirable to men,” she writes.

It was true for Joe and I. At the end of our two-year relationship, it was impossible to sob to Sinead-O’Connor and lie in the bath with a box of Thorntons, and simultaneously retain a shred of dignity as Joe shared the same terraced house and five close friends. He went out in his ‘pulling shirt’ nightly, and I morphed into a skint but manicured socialite, dating and dancing my way to ‘dignity.’

It’s just as difficult for guys, argues Daniel, a student at Goldsmiths, University of London. “After we broke up, Amy pulled seven out of the nine guys on our corridor who were mostly chubby gargoyles and happy to oblige and made sure I could see. I called her a slut, had a fling and kept face in front of the lads. But underneath it was raw and messy. And after all that, she kept coming to my room drunk. Breaking up and living together is never clear cut.”

For those that handle the close-proximity without the break ups, hang ups and stalker-like tendencies, maintaining friendships and social lives pose new challenges. “Memories of my entire second year are blurry,” admits Robyn, a single Londoner who graduated from University of Warwick last year. “Every day was the same; I’d smoke weed, shag and binge on Monster Munch with boyfriend Luke. I lost closeness with most non-smoking friends and put on two stone.”

Instead, striking a balance between work, interests, friends and your partner is key. Dr Perman-Kerr advises, “the golden rule in all relationships is never to try and cage a person because even if this doesn’t lead to a break up, it will cause deep-seated resentments that will eat away and destroy what the couple have together.”

Stretching the distance: Living Faraway

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