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So it’s all gone a bit arse up, your love interest has turned out to be another toad or maybe your facing the unenviable situation of unrequited love, for whatever the reason you have been plunged into the dark hole of “what now?”

It is all too easy to stew over situations like this and depending on your personality, and often sex, you will no doubt go in two different directions; 1 - Feel an urge to trawl through every up and down of the last few weeks/months or 2 - Get really pissed, flirt with someone else and move directly past GO, collect £200 and wang it on something completely inappropriate. I am an utter and fully fledged fan of option two.

In years gone by when I was younger, stupid and self deprecating I’d spend ages wondering what went wrong, the “why me? what’s wrong with me?” questions would fire through my brain cells and torment me, usually when I was trying to sleep, until I became utterly insane. Then one day, after a particularly sticky break up with an ex, I stamped my foot, thought “*&^% this” and went out. The night consisted of vodka, cosmopolitans, my mates, loads of laughs and a particularly hot guy I knew. I can safely say this equation totted up to be the best remedy I could hope for!

Of course not everyone has the nonchalant attitude I have spent years perfecting so I am not telling you to dramatically change your ways, what I am saying is to try to put your best foot forward and get on with living your life.

Driving yourself potty with questions such as “why aren’t they texting me?”, “why did they say that?”, “what did I do wrong?” “am I not attractive enough?” STTTOOPPPP!!! Don’t do it to yourself! You will probably never know the truth as to why it hasn’t worked out with someone so there is zero point torturing yourself for hours with questions you just can’t get answers to!

Back to what I do; firstly I begin with “their loss”, this is a great thing to say to yourself. You know you’re great, say it. You’ve got a great arse/legs/eyes/personality, whatever you love about you, say it to yourself. Then begin with the points you didn’t like about them, the reasons you actually know why you weren’t a great match, repeat to yourself several times. Do not pontificate about the things they were amazing at, it is completely useless and often we have a habit after a break up of longing for someone and turning them into someone they never were, a martyr and ourselves into a lowly non-worthy trog.

The next step is to enjoy life. Organise nights out with your friends, get in touch with that person you know has a soft spot for you, pamper yourself, have a laugh and most importantly do not look back! Your new love interest is only a short distance away I’d bet, but only if you remain positive, you won’t bag anyone with your bottom lip dragging along the floor behind you.

Why, we as humans, have an innate need to make ourselves feel awful is beyond me, but it is there in Technicolor! We must do our very best to suppress the negative and focus on the positive. So this one didn’t work out, so what? Now you get to have fun finding the next, being single isn’t bad, in fact if you do it right it’s bloody good fun.

Remember too, the time we spend in singledom only complements the time we spend in relationships. Enjoy both, do not feel you are less of a person because something didn’t work out, you aren’t. It was just a lesson to be learnt, you made your notes and now move on.

NEXT!