I don’t know what is more complicated, modern day dating or infinitesimal calculus? The former entails excruciating heartbreaks, whimsical rendezvous, drunken Tinder swiping, all-encompassing love, ghosting anxiety and of course, my most recent romantic endeavour; the situationship. A situationship is the term for relationships that never quite make it “official”. These can be particularly hard to get over because how do you grieve the loss of someone that was never truly yours? And in my case, I knew it was bound to end the entire time I was in it. Yet, when it came to its inevitable yet devastating finale five months later, I was left feeling heartbroken. One minute you’re swept up in canoodling on the couch, the next your brunch buddy and trusty lift home after a drunken night out is simply gone.

With great casual pleasure, comes great responsibility! The lines can easily become blurred and those impassioned little feelings will slowly seep in, despite how much you deny it to yourself and every single one of your friends. So, when it ends it’s completely normal that you’re going to be upset about it.

We live in a culture where we feel compelled to label and title things as “legitimate” relationships. Telling yourself that it wasn’t “real” won’t make you feel any better.

Feel all your feelings. Seriously, cry about it while drinking one too many glasses of pinot noir on a Tuesday night and then call your best friend and cry a little more. Watch Sex and the City until midnight, hoping to embody the nonchalant energy of Samantha Jones. Tell the same story about how he was such a nice guy to your friends again and again until they threaten to strangle you. And lastly, lurk them on Instagram until you feel that awful pit in your stomach and then try to build up the courage to mute them. It is all part of the process of healing. The sooner you feel it all, the sooner you can put those feelings to rest and move on.

In saying that, there are no set rules as to when you should be over it. You don’t have to be over it immediately just because it wasn’t some long-winded relationship where you met his grandma and got an invitation to his third cousin’s wedding. And, if you do get over it fast, congrats! When I was wallowing in self-pity a week after it ended, I confided in a close friend who had been through a similar thing, begging her to give me answers on when this harrowing feeling of missing them would end. Her response was after six months of her situationship ending, she still had moments of missing them.

There is no definitive answer or timeline for when you should be over them, but remember you will eventually move on. So, when you’re simultaneously eating the equivalent of four servings of cookies and cream ice cream, crying and watching Love Actually, remember that you have experienced difficult times, breakups and transitions in the past and you got through all of them. This, too, will eventually pass. Situationships are rather peculiar, as unlike a friends with benefits situation there is a strong emotional connection outside of the shagging. They’re the equivalent of having a delicious chocolate cheesecake and eating it too, because you get intimacy, a blooming friendship and no commitments to each other, all wrapped up in one.You quickly find yourself picking up on their cute and irritating quirks and checking your phone tirelessly to see if they’ve texted you. You divulge deep and intimate things about yourself to them and soon you find yourself deleting Hinge for the 105th time and meeting their friends.

However, through all of these somewhat “relationship” milestones, you know you’re not going to run away into the sunset together. Bad timing, and a niggling feeling that it’s not right are enough for you to know it will eventually end. But, while you’re in this lustful state of a new and exciting romance, you pay little attention to its looming end as it inches closer and closer. Until it finally does. *queue the heartbreak*

As the saying goes, ‘It’s better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all’. While you may not have loved the person, but like me, you may have really, really, really liked them and shared some wonderful memories together, it was without a doubt worth it. An exhilarating romance that was fleeting is to be mourned but never regretted. Whilst I still can’t listen to anything by José González without shedding a tear, I am moving forward with the help of good friends, a margarita or two and the power in knowing that like the ending of a Dolly Alderton book, everything will be okay.