Listening to The Smiths and staring out the window on rainy days: the prospect of maintaining a long-distance relationship at Uni is a terrifying one at first, but it doesn’t have to be a heart breaking train-wreck of coach tickets and breakdowns. By simply following these steps, the transition can be smooth and easy.

Spend every minute of your free time on Skype

Stood up again.

No amount of video-chatting is ever enough when it comes to a long distance relationship, so do it as much as possible, and if you do it for long enough, you simply won’t have the time to miss one another.

While a pixelated, jittering image on a laptop screen may be a poor replacement for the real thing, spending all your time in your room, having a romantic online dinner date with your significant other is still better than a night out in Bunker.

Remain in a constant state of jealousy 

A key part of coping with a long distance relationship is making sure that your significant other is constantly aware that you are watching their every move on Facebook, stalking every person who appears in a photo with them and scaring them off with homicidal threats. This is a subtle way of letting them know that you still care about them, and helps them to avoid making friends too. (See step 2)

Avoid making any new friends

Friends: they want to ruin your life

It is popular opinion that making a new and close group of friends can provide you with good memories and a comforting support network. This is of course utter crap. In order to preserve and maintain your relationship, avoid making new friends. They will want to socialise with you and take you out to bars and clubs, which might make your significant other worried or jealous. Which brings us to…

Work your relationship into every conversation

The rest of the world needs to know that you’re in a relationship, and you can prove how devoted you are by letting everyone know about this really cute text you got last night from your significant other about how much they miss you. It doesn’t matter if the person you’re talking to doesn’t care. So long as they know.

Finally, remember, your relationship is far more important than the so-called ‘life-changing’ years you are likely to spend at university. There is a lot of joy to be had in wallowing in self-pity and being moved to tears by memories of your distant lover. So don’t give up, no matter what your genuinely concerned flat mates sa.