We shared flats (not apartments as they are known these days) after finishing our studies. We were both working in the city and enjoying the company of a variety of boyfriends at the time. There were some great memories of those years.

We gradually eliminated various guys, whittling it down to the final two whom we eventually married. We could still look back fifty years later and laugh at some of the hilarious situations (and some not so funny) predicaments we found ourselves in.

I was reminded of those years when my friend came to stay with me recently.

She was very concerned about her 18-year-old granddaughter who was now ‘in counselling’. Counselling for what? Her boyfriend had dumped her for a better option... the prettiest girl in the school apparently.

The hysterical sobbing and weeping and wailing was all too much for her parents who didn’t feel competent enough to deal with their daughter’s grief, so off they sent her to the school counsellor.

They were paying big fees at that school, so I have no doubt the counsellor was expected to provide a solution.

Excuse me...counselling? Isn’t there such a thing these days as learning to deal with heartache? She’s going to have a lot more of these rejections before Mr. Right comes along, if he ever does!

Remember he’ll get his comeuppance from someone one day too. What goes around comes around in this world. We understand that.

This experience will help her cope better the next time this happens.

During those exciting years of courtship and romance all my girlfriends took to their beds at some stage, sorrowful over some handsome Adonis who dumped them.

No one was sympathetic for long. We were expected to pick ourselves up and move on… and so we did.

I retreated to a friend’s holiday house at Flinders for a week after a harsh dumping by someone I believed was the love of my life.

I spent the week whacking golf balls around the Flinders golf course, where every ball was his head. It felt great and by the end of the week I was over him.

Are we becoming a little too precious?

I don’t have a lot of sympathy for a young woman who sends nude photos of herself on her phone to her boyfriend, assuming he will honourably delete them when love turns to hurt and rejection.

It is never wise to make choices regretted later when a rejected suitor sends photos out on the internet, a potent weapon in itself.

Girls, wise up! Don’t leave yourself vulnerable to boyfriend/partner abuse, be discrete using social media. No intimate photos are a good start.

It’s okay for these immature guys to apologise after the event, but when photos go viral there’s no stopping their progress and they spread swiftly and cruelly.

Parents also need to heed the warning not only to their daughters but their sons, who should be told loudly and clearly that this is not acceptable behaviour.

These guys need to understand that a girl can have them charged for sending intimate photos over the internet without her agreement.

However I would say to my granddaughters today, ‘toughen up’. A failed romance doesn’t require counselling.

Accept that he’s just ‘not that into you’, toss it over your left shoulder and move on. 

ANNIE YOUNG