Smash hit

David Argument knows a thing or two about long-distance relationships. He studies in London and has dated Lyndsey from York for four years. “The hardest thing is handling the loneliness,” he says. “I got a part-time office job a few weeks ago. It’s not the same celebrating with a Stella and a Madras instead of Lyndsey.”

To maintain a healthy, long-distance relationship, he recommends regular communication, absolute openness and effort on both parts are crucial. Paula Hall, a Relate psychotherapist, agrees. “A good option for both parties is to pursue their own ambitions at separate universities but try to stay together. Include the other person as much as possible, introduce them to friends. It's tempting to focus exclusively on each other during visits, but you can't keep the relationship separate.”

Mutual consensus is key if the relationship is to work. Postgraduate student, Matej realised quickly after leaving his Slovenian home and girlfriend that there wasn’t a place for her. “I found a new place for me and perhaps even a new identity,” he explains. “There was not really room for any of the old 'baggage'. The distance also helped me see that I don't need or love her in a way.”

Greater difficulties arise when cuts are less cleanly severed; when partners both want to stay together but have different priorities and levels of time commitment. Dr Perman-Kerr recommends that one puts themselves in their partner’s position to try to see both perspectives. “Use this understanding to be respectful and kind regarding their position - but at the same time keep a foot firmly in your own shoes so you can always honestly assess how the relationship is working for you,” she advises.

Laura broke up with her long-term partner after graduating from University of Bath last year. “Mohammed and I lived together well in Russia but when I went back to uni in Bath and he moved to London, he only visited me once every six months,” she explains. “It was up to me to visit him every weekend. My granddad was diagnosed with inoperable cancer at the same time I had finals, and he played rugby instead of visiting me. I screamed down the phone until he eventually came.

“That’s the other thing about distance,” she adds “you feel uneasy arguing and making up over the phone. There’s not true resolution until you see them.”

Make or break: Is it over?

Before crushing a relationship to irreparability on a whim or after a bad curry, remember to fully assess the relationship’s merits. The trigger that sparked me finally cut my own somewhat stale two-year relationship was a third glass of wine and a newly-formed crush on Alan Rickman developed watching Love Actually. Not recommended.

Goldsmiths student, Daniel describes his friend’s even-more misguided breakup. “My mate’s girlfriend Lisa used to give us taxi numbers when we went out, and made us all steak dinners even though she was vegetarian. But he got bored one day. He ditched her after two years for a cokehead scene girl on a champagne lifestyle with his lemonade budget. Months later, he was kicking himself. He made grand gestures to get her back but it was too late.”

So how do you know when a stale relationship is too stale to repair? Doctor Perman-Kerr offers Times Student readers a relationship litmus test: “If a relationship is continually hard work and makes you miserable more often than it brings you joy then one has to honestly recognise that it is not strong enough to weather life's storms and be strong enough to move on and find one that can endure.”

Living in the noughties as a twenty-something is the simplest time for singledom. In 1960, the average man married at 23 and the average woman at 20 but forty years later, the average ages have risen to 27 and 25 respectively, leaving years for unpressurised dating and testing what or who suits best. “Now you have 10 to 15 years of figuring out the opposite sex when marriage isn't uppermost in your mind,” says David Popenoe of the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University, New Jersey.

After three years and three relationships styles; the close, the closer and the distance, I’ve found single studentdom. I don’t mean a-box-of-condoms-a-week studentdom or even Carrie Bradshaw-style “sex and the student.” The bed sheets are usually chilly and the walk to Iceland is cold now the Fiat Panda has driven on, but single student living is colourful, free and refreshingly simple.

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