Over the last few weeks I have stood by and watched as my friends have been involved in break-ups, starting relationships or continue to be unhappy in their current relationships. But what interests me as someone who is single - is it worth it?

Starting with the break-up, my friend recently suffered a kick in the teeth when her boyfriend decided that he didn't have enough time for her because of his workload; is this an excuse? I personally think this is just a shallow excuse of a man saying: "no offence, love but I'm bored, been there, done you and got the t-shirt", but obviously in a more discreet and tactful way. But what annoys me is despite the relationship being short should we be upset by this ending? We cried together and my friend cried alone but worst of all, the bloke knew that this was the result of his actions. Should we continue to be bitter after the break-up or should we take the steps to get over it by going out and having sex with the next person and hope it turns into something? Which brings me on to think, when we start a relationship how do we get there? Most of the time it could be by accident, you go on a date and maybe a few others and BAM before you know it you can't spend more than a day apart from each other. So is your boyfriend/girlfriend just a good friend that you have sex with? So the question is when you take the sex away, why can't we continue to be good friends?

The start of a relationship is always good: you get butterflies when you see them, you feel all cuddly and have a big smile on your face, but why is this different to having a really good friend? This is just the result of the affection from another, so is this all caused by sex? I personally believe in my cynical mind that a relationship is just good friends that happen to have sex - making you sex-buddies.

So when does a relationship become complicated? Well, the more and more time people spend together we tend to find things to dislike and this is when it happens...you become practically married. When you have to change yourself to please the other half does this not go against the principle of being yourself? The manipulation of your personality can change you and you tend to find that while you're in a relationship you change; this can lose you friends and then, before you know it, your partner is the only friend you have - but is this reversible? Well, this is where you find out who your true friends really are because if everything goes wrong then the true friends will be there to catch you at the bottom of the slippery slope we call love.

I can understand the beginning of a relationship and the honeymoon period, with the kisses and the cuddles but why do we continue to be in a relationship if we are unhappy? I stand to guess that it is all about LOVE but if we consider this carefully how many of us can truthfully say "I couldn't live without you; I love you"? The younger we go down the generation scale we are much more liberal and forthcoming with the word but how many of us actually mean it when we tell our partners we love them?

These days it is very rare that you come across someone whose parents are not divorced, but if you go a generation older to our grandparents this is very different. Divorce was frowned upon still even then so are many of our grandparents living in unhappy marriages just because they feel obliged too? But back to the modern age, as students why do we choose to keep unhappy relationships together? Are we all just using each other for regular sex and choosing to be unhappy the rest of the time just because you have good sex? My theory is that although most people like the idea of having someone on their arm there is only two uses for these people: firstly, to show off, and secondly, to satisfy sexual needs. But my feeling is why not just cancel the first one and save the hassle of compromise, and all the rest of the characteristics that are needed for a 'deep meaningful relationship'?

- Lucinda Gillam