By Catherine Portland

Is it Valentine's Day? Your birthday? Are you thousands of miles from home or have you just moved in together? Beware, ladies - my risk radar tells me that your chances of being dumped have just gone through the roof.

We all know it's a pretty horrendous experience at any time. At best, it's a bit depressing to think you wasted all that time with a complete loser, at worst, the only love of your life is making a terrible, terrible mistake and he just can't see it.

However, the torturous nature of the situation is made infinitely worse by the form of the execution - and the way men handle ditching their nearest and dearest continues to astound me. Sadly, I have been on the wrong end of some truly awful dumping etiquette. So here's a bit of advice to any men out there who want to leave the girl in question with her sanity, more or less, intact. Fundamentally, try to avoid being any of the following:

The Delayer: This creature works his victims into spasms of hopelessness, hope (far worse), tension and terror by sending out all the signals but halting before delivering the final blow. Do not, whatever you do, send a girl a text saying "we need to talk tonight" and then make her wait all day. Much as it may surprise you, she will know what this means.

The Left-Fielder: A species as far from the delayer as it's possible to get, though equally horrid in his way. He will act as devoted as ever, and then, when drunk/impossible to physically reach out and strangle, he will deliver the lightning bolt from a clear blue sky.

The Cryer: This chap wants to have his cake and eat it. By displaying the sobbing signs of humanity during the process, he robs the girl of her starring moment in the victim spotlight and flaunts his "human" side. It doesn't wash you know - deep down we know they're tears of relief. By the way, saying "but I do still love you" will only give the poor girl misguided hope and make all her friends hate you even more.

The Special Dayer: For a while I suspected this one was a sort of urban legend, until it was proved first-hand that he actually exists. He'll wait until your birthday, New Year's Eve or Valentine's Day (he gets extra points for that one) and then will whip the rug out from under your feet as other boyfriends whip out flowers. He'll blame the pressure of the big day, but really he's just too tight to get you a present…

It would be impossible to flag up all the sub-species of sub-boyfriend that exist in the annals of dumping disasters. But boys, take it from me, there are ditchings and ditchings. Girls remember the bad dumpings of years gone by as boys remember great World Cup goals.