Celebrities Are Breaking Up Left Right And Center, And We’re Blaming The Party Gap

It's been a bad month for celebrity break-ups. Or a good one if you're a messy bitch who loves drama.

First Miley and Liam called it quits. Then Stormzy and Maya Jama ended things.

While the couples are pretty much chalk and cheese, the motivation behind their break-ups might well have been the same. According to sources commenting on both break-ups, the problem was a disconnect between the respective couples' attitudes towards partying. Otherwise known as The Party Gap.

The Party Gap is the problem created when one Party Person falls in love with one Non-Party Person.

Basically, if you're in a relationship with someone who loves the sesh, but you'd really prefer a couple of glasses of wine and early bed, then you're a victim of The Party Gap.

Picture the scene: it's Saturday night. Technically, actually, it's 3 o'clock on Sunday morning. You're drunk enough that your feet don't hurt and you're the funniest person in the room, but not so drunk that you're going to be sick. Everything is perfect, only your SO keeps looking at you and pointing at their watch.

That'll be The Party Gap rearing its ugly head.

On the flip side, imagine that it's 4am, your shoes are making your heel bleed, you stopped liking the taste of wine three hours ago and everyone around you is talking complete shit. It's cold, you're tired and you want to go bed. But, in the centre of the room, laughing like a clown and loving the limelight, is your other half.

Again, that's The Party Gap.

If you're the party animal in the relationship you can end up feeling as if you're having your wings clipped. Why shouldn't you be able to scream Mr Brightside while standing in a field having lost one shoe?

If you're the sleepy one, you might well have the same level of resentment, because you're going to be tired and hungover the next day as a result of something that you didn't even want to do.

Obviously it's impossible to say whether this was what did for the Hemsworth/Cyrus union, or whether it was what ended Stormzy and Maya's relationship. But it's a tale as old as time – a couple who are otherwise happy and well suited fall apartthanks to The Party Gap.

In theory the way to avoid this happening would be to get involved with people who have the same appetite for partying as you do.

But that's not always foolproof, thanks to 'party fishing', which is where the person you're dating is up for staying out all hours in the early part of your relationship, but who then turns into Horlicks-drinking homebird upon hearing 'I love you' and exchanging house keys.

It's easily done. In the early days of a relationship, there's a kind of pixie dust swirling, which makes you want to stay up all night and listen to drunken slurring from the person you love. But, when the magic fades and the honeymoon period is over, however much you love your other half, they can't always make you want to stay out until the wee hours of the morning.

Even if the party fishing isn't purposeful, people's appetites for late nights evolve. Maybe it's getting older, for some people it's having kids. Whatever the reason, it's okay to change, and just because you used to enjoy a late one doesn't mean that you still have to. However, when you're having a brilliant time it's hard not to resent the person who makes you get in a taxi hours before you wanted to leave.

Ultimately, all that you can do if you're in a Party Gap relationship is try to compromise. Talk before a social event about when you're going to go home and how long you both want to stay, and take it in turns to be bummed out about going home early or grumpy about staying out late.

If you trust your partner (which, not sure if you've heard, is quite a big part of making it work) then you don't always have to go home together, so one of you could get an Uber back in time for the Graham Norton Show, while the other eats a tequila worm out of someone else's shoe.

As long as you make quality time for each other once the hangover clears the next day, there's no reason that you can't build a bridge over the Party Gap.