What I wish I'd known before starting university with a boyfriend

When I started dating someone I really liked two months before starting university, I didn't really give my impending move 170 miles north a second thought.

Obviously loads of my mates thought I was totally batshit for entertaining the idea of staying together. Naturally they were concerned about "all the sex" I'd miss out on in Fresher's Week. Others said it just wouldn't work - maybe I'd cheat, maybe he'd meet someone else, maybe we'd realise we just CBA with the distance. But we never even had a conversation about whether we'd stay together, it was just assumed. We were young, in love for the first time, and I now realise, absolute morons.

Although we were both from the same city in Norfolk, he (let's call him Eric) was in his final year of uni in Essex. I was moving up north to Leeds, exactly 204 miles away from him. No big deal, right?

The morning of the big move, we woke up together at my parents' house, cracking up about how stupid our friends were for thinking we wouldn't make it work. They didn't know anything, they didn't get what it was like to be this in love. When we said goodbye, there were obvs tears but nothing too dramatic. We'd see each other in a few weeks, anyway.

My first week living in Leeds was actually awesome. I had a whole city to discover, and for the first time in my life I wasn't living with my parents and had moved in with three of my best mates from home. We decorated the crappy terraced house we'd rented, tried out all the local pubs, and were shitting ourselves with disbelief that on our doorstep we had pizza places, a legit good alternative music venue and thousands of people our age who just wanted to have fun. It was beyond exciting.

Then lectures started. I don't know why, but from the moment I met my relatively small class, I just knew we weren't going to be bezzers. Everyone was two years younger than me. They seemed almost hysterical in their immaturity, it was like they'd just discovered alcohol for the first time and they were going completely bonkers. I found it incredibly dull and annoying.

It'd been two weeks and I hadn't bonded with anyone. Eric was basically all I had.

When Eric drove up to visit me two weeks later (thank F he had a car, otherwise we would have spent a lot more on travel than we did - which BTW worked out to about £3,000 by the time I graduated) I'd never been so chuffed to see him. Everyone imagines they'll go to uni and meet their best friends for life on the first day. It'd been two weeks and I hadn't bonded with anyone. Eric was basically all I had.

I think from that moment on, I attached myself to him (both emotionally and physically) like a blood-sucking parasite. It didn't bother me when after lectures everyone on my course went to the Union and I went home alone and listened to records. I didn't need them anyway. I had a boyfriend.

Don't get me wrong, I'd speak to my course mates and it wasn't ever awkward between us. But I made approximately zero effort to be friends with them. Why should I bother? I didn't have time to see them at the weekend because either Eric was coming to Leeds or I was going to Essex.

It was like without him, I didn't exist.

Gradually, I became so reliant on Eric's company that whenever he left, I felt legit empty inside. Every week at uni was spent wishing the hours away for our next weekend together. And by the end of the first year, we were seeing each other pretty much every weekend.

It was like without him, I didn't exist. Like a zombie I went to classes, worked at a bar, and hung out with my housemates... but that was all just a means of killing time. I wasn't really enjoying myself. And although Eric had his own stuff going on - he'd now finished uni, moved back to Norfolk and was touring with his band - he felt exactly the same. We'd both invested so much into each other, the pressure was immense. Even when he was playing shows half way across the world, he was never fully able to lose himself in the experience, because he was wondering how I was coping back home.

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Despite what everyone predicted, we stayed together for the whole three years. Of course, it wasn't easy. We argued both when we were together and apart, jealousy popped up from time to time (when I made a new male friend through work, when he was going to after-show parties almost every night). But we never cheated and never talked about splitting up.

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Then my graduation rolled around. Every time I talked to Eric, he made it sound like our future was carved in stone. "You'll move back to Norfolk, we'll rent a flat and we can both get a job here," he'd say. For a while I'd nodded along, accepting my fate. But by now, I'd met a few more like-minded people through my job at a music venue. We'd go to shows together, have post-work lock ins and go on day trips all over Yorkshire. Finally, I'd found 'my kind of people'. These pals were planning on moving abroad, travelling the world, going after their dream jobs. And that was when it hit me like a cream pie to the face: I wanted that too.

I wanted to do something for me. I wanted to be single.

After months of thinking my life was back in Norfolk with Eric, I just decided nah, actually. I wanted to do a Masters degree. I wanted to be a journalist. I wanted to do something for me. I wanted to be single.

Eric was surprised, and hurt and rightly so. We'd spent three years promising each other our love was forever. That it didn't matter how unhappy we were 'right now', because the future was ours. I'd laid next him in bed, naked and vulnerable, and sworn this misery would all be worth it. And then I'd just... changed my mind.

Like the absolute legend of a person Eric was and still is, he accepted it. He understood. He wanted me to succeed. And even when two weeks later he had a wobble, called me crying and asked me to reconsider, I didn't. I still loved him and it killed me that I was causing him pain, but I was resolute. I wanted to be selfish.

Obviously, now, I realise it was the best decision I've ever made. I wouldn't be where and who I am today if I hadn't have ended it there. But with the magic of hindsight, I don't think I would do it all again.

I'd move away for university as a single woman. I'd put my heart and soul into studying, but also into meeting new people and having new experiences. I'd make friends, I'd go to every social, I'd join clubs and actually put effort in with people rather than hiding away in my room wishing the hours away. I hadn't just robbed myself of what's meant to be the 'best time of your life', I'd also robbed Eric of his.