I Broke Up With My Boyfriend And It Ruined All Of The Songs That I Used To Love

So, my boyfriend and I have just broken up. There are probably other things I should worry about first, like working out where I can get the best deal on tissues and a Magic Mike DVD, but for now, how am I supposed to get through this when iTunes (Adele, you insensitive socipath!) is an emotional minefield, threatening to turn every pleasant bus journey into a blubbering shit show?

When everything was good, it was great. Light would hit his face just right and doves took flight in the background proverbially crapping on every other human being who paled in comparison. It was at those moments that I thought my heart would just BURST and "Unchained Melody" would blast through the speakers in my mind. I was living a cheesy 1950s movie and it was amazing.

But things unravel and now I have to deal with the soundtracks to my cry-max-ing creeping in and kicking me in the stomach. Yay. I can acknowledge that "Somebody That I Used to Know" is the shittiest song ever, but that doesn't make it any less painful to hear when I am trying on a cute sweater in Topshop - how am I supposed to deal with losing music I actually like?

I went through the songs I hadn't already hastily deleted and dragged a few zombies back from their rubbish bin graves to figure out how to re-appropriate music I still enjoyed. For the purpose of this task I am going to refer to my ex boyfriend as "Stapler" because I don't want to mention his name and staplers are just fucking boring and connotation-less.

BEST COAST - "BOYFRIEND"

Conversations about "feelings" are normally pretty cringe to recount. They always sound like something ripped from a cheap, moody Skins moment. I'm a girl who shudders at the thought of commitment and I will most likely not handle them well. I'm quite sure that to this day I have only told people I've liked them after alcohol has been drunk - but I'm working on it, whatever. At this point I had heard that Stapler was telling people I was his girlfriend which was both nice and confusing. I mean, hello, I am trying very hard to present an independent lady front here? But truth be told I was ready to fall head over heels for… Stapler, and the first time I was at his house (bed) this song came on and because when prompted, I get so so cheesy, I sang along "I wish he was my boyfriend" which was a smooth segue into, "soooooooooo… are you my boyfriend?". I want to punch myself in the face, that is not cute at all. "Boyfriend" was deleted a long time ago. I don't need to listen to this ever again. EVER. It makes me feel so awkward.

THE BEATLES - "HERE, THERE, AND EVERYWHERE"

Any time someone learns to play something for you on guitar is far too sweet to keep or repeat. This had to be voted off the island, for my own sanity.

INSPECTAH DECK - "LOVIN' YOU"

"Soft as a mattress, said she was Catholic

Physically attractive, earth-toned skin

Thick but thin, looked like she just came off an island"

So, Stapler used to say I was like the girl described in the lyrics…which is clearly a huge fucking compliment and very not true, but THANKS. After we broke up I was resentful towards all rap, like, all of it because it reminded me of him but then I decided to stop being crazy because you can't let an entire genre of music upset you. Plus, it's so good. These days, I just imagine Inspectah Deck is talking to just me.

WHY? - "GOOD FRIDAY"

We listened to a lot of WHY? when we started dating. The entire Alopecia album would play on loop as many times as it could before the battery on my pink MacBook would die and I'd have to quickly scramble around for a charger and hit the keyboard before things returned to their soft indie rock equilibrium. We had too many ways to fill our time and not enough hours before the sun would rise. MMM, young love. I don't have any of this anymore but listening to this now immediately brings me back to that honeymoon phase bubble - I guess it will always be there if I need it, but I don't need to carry it around with me every day and that's a-okay.

METHOD MAN & MARY J. BLIGE - "I'LL BE THERE FOR YOU/YOU'RE ALL I NEED TO GET BY (REMIX)"

"Lie together, cry together, I swear to God I hope we fucking die together"

This just reminds me of Will Smith and Martin Lawrence being Bad Boys for life, "we ride together, we die together" and there is not a single thing wrong with that.

IRON AND WINE - "SUCH GREAT HEIGHTS (POSTAL SERVICE COVER)"

UGH. This will hit me out of nowhere while I'm busy strutting down the street like a total Beyonce. It has more power than I'd like so I will always forward past it to the next song but then I'm all, "Camille stop that, it's just a song, don't let it upset you" so I put it back on but it never fails to put me in a really raindrops on my window type place and I feel increasingly loopy each time for letting that back and forth thought process run through my head. LIFE, amirite?

GANG STARR - "WORK"

You gave me a lot of music and I couldn't give all of it the attention it needed, but this is now my favourite song to listen to when I need to feel like some kind of power player/bad bitch/lady in charge so thanks, Stapler.

Follow Camille on Twitter @CamStanden