Breaking up is hard to do, but at least I don’t have to pretend to like Xbox anymore.

Ben and Jerry’s. Beyonce’s latest album. Bridget Jones’ Diary. Girls’ Nights In. Vodka.

No, I’m not quoting the Facebook status of one of those highly irritating females who feel the need to document their every move so that their ex boyfriend can see just how much they’re enjoying the single life. These are just four of the many things I tried to avoid like the plague when I broke up with my ex boyfriend three months ago.

Why? Because despite them being some of the most effective heartbreak cures, I was determined not to become a cliché. After all, I would tell myself, I was a strong, independent woman. I was not going to let the patriarchy get me down! I had so much time to myself these days and I loved it. I was going to read SCUM Manifesto and buy a pair of dungarees! I was going to order a Dominos and eat all of it. By myself. Don’t worry about me, guys, I’d say to all of my friends. I was going to be absolutely fine.

You won’t be surprised to hear that this attitude lasted about a week. Then I descended into a hideous cycle of comfort eating and self loathing. I listened to Taylor Swift on repeat, and cried, and didn’t even try and pretend there was another reason I was buying twenty Marlboro Lights, Co-Op own brand chocolate ice cream and £3.99 red wine at three o clock on a Monday afternoon.

It’s safe to say I was a mess. But the good thing about reaching your lowest point is that you can only move upwards. So that’s what I did.

Don’t get me wrong, I relapsed from time to time. I would be halfway through a night out, dancing away, when I would catch sight of some loved up couple furiously devouring each other’s faces. In these instances, I would collapse into a shuddering, pathetic heap and need to be taken home via Tastebuds, mumbling drunkenly that I was going to die alone to anyone who would still listen.

And then, a month or two ago, I turned a corner. I started enjoying myself on nights out. I stopped cringing at the word ‘single’ and every time I felt the tiniest bit lonely I would remind myself of the time my ex boyfriend made me miss my best friend’s birthday party because he’d drunk an entire bottle of gin on an empty stomach. He had a nice little snooze in the foetal position by the toilet and I stayed up til’ 3am because he had whimpered he was scared he might choke on his own vomit.

It can be difficult when you feel as if the majority of your friends are texting away with big sloppy smiles on their faces and getting taken out for dinner at Frank’s Bar, but next time you feel even a pang of envy, remember that even the most badly behaved one-night-stand probably wouldn’t stick your head under the duvet after he’s just done a fart.

Regardless of who broke up with whom, who said what and what went down, a break up is always going to be a bit shit. All I can say is that there is a big difference between being single and being on your own. Since my relationship ended, I’ve embraced university life to a whole other level. For the first time in a long time, I have the opportunity to focus on myself. And I’m hardly in danger of becoming a nun.

Three years, three months, three days – it doesn’t matter how long your relationship lasted. If you dwell on the past, you’re going to miss out on some of the best years of your life. Join a society. Get really, really drunk. Go to a really hideous nightclub on the Prince of Wales and seduce a local into buying you a drink. Do it all, and stop looking at this as the end of something. It’s a beginning.

And if you can’t do that, you’ve got just under eleven months til’ Valentine’s Day. You better get cracking.