They’re the only person who will wipe puke off your shoes after a long night of vodka tonics and drunken crying jags.

They will be your wingman, even when you want to get off with that sexy graphic designer and she is stuck with his creepy-ass boss with the lazy eye and constant assurances that he ‘knows how to please a woman’.

They’re someone you can pee in front of. Your ally, the only other person who gets your stupid in-jokes, someone you can call at four in the morning on a work-day. Therefore it is one of the saddest relationships to lose.

Breaking up with your best friend is more traumatic than breaking up with a boyfriend or girlfriend because your best friend a) knows all the secrets and embarrassing stories you would never DREAM of sharing with someone you’re going out with and b) has probably spent way more time with you than anyone else.

After the break-up they’ll be a constant, crippling, panic that the fucking bitch is going to blab to everyone about the time you got caught shoplifting from Cancer Research or the time you slept with your third cousin.

There are five steps to getting through the period after the break-up:

1. Make sure you did the right thing
You need to make sure there is no way to patch things up. If she did something heinous to you, you need to outweigh the pros and cons.

Has she done it before? Is she likely to do it again? If the answer to both is ‘yes’, then you were probably right to dump her.

If not, its probably worth forgiving her and moving on. If it’s something you did, you need to throw yourself at the altar of dignity and beg like a 14-year-old boy trying to get a hand job. If she still can’t forgive you, move on to Step 2.

2. Mourn

One day you will see something incredibly funny, like a 400 pound woman in velour pants with ‘BOOTYLICIOUS’ written on the ass or a biblical grime video on youtube. You’ll feel depressed that you can’t tell your best friend about it. Then you’ll want to call your best friend and tell her you’re feeling depressed. Its a really shitty paradox. Avoid watching chick flicks and ignore the urge to eat a pint of Ben and Jerry’s.

3. Remember you have other friends
This step only applies if you’re one of those self absorbed douches who hangs out with just one person all the time occasionally making half hearted promises to ‘catch up with everyone’.

If your friends will still have you, for the first few weeks you have to bring the fucking party. Buy booze, cigarettes and coke, never turn down an invite and always be the first person on the dancefloor. If they won’t take you back, you better whore yourself out on every social networking site on the internet.

4. Learn from your mistakes
If you let someone continually treat you badly for a long period of time, there is probably something wrong with you. And if you did it to someone else, ditto.

If it was a one-off, think about why you’re not friends anymore, what went wrong, why it went wrong, what you learnt and apply it to any future relationships. For example if you stopped talking because you fucked your her boyfriend, you might come to the conclusion that in future you probably shouldn’t fuck your friends’ boyfriends. Simple.

5. Move on
Don’t slag her off, conduct yourself with grace and dignity no matter if she is doing the same or not. Eventually, you won’t find yourself getting teary-eyed at that Clearisil ad where the spotty teen recommends the 2 in 1 face wash to her equally complexion-challenged mate.

When you feel like you’re no longer damaged goods, you can open your heart to someone else. There are other BFFs in the sea.

WORDS: Amy Green

TOP ILLUSTRATION: Ella Plevin

BOTTOM ILLUSTRATION: Linda Pedersen