About as conventional as passing out on your 18th birthday, the girls’/guys’ holiday is something of a rite of passage into adulthood. Popularised by TV shows, party towns such as Malia, Magaluf (or should I say ‘Shagaluf’), Zante and Kavos are satirised as a “modern paradise”. And every year young Brits flock in their thousands to such resorts in the hope of having the time of their lives, escaping their parents for the first time, and partying to the extreme point of hospitalisation.

But when the Daily Mail condemned What Happens in Kavos for showing a “shameless” 42-year-old mother taking her 22-year-old daughter on a three-hour binge, the popularity of the shows and the reputation of these resorts was soberly clear. And, if my mother’s words are anything to go by, it certainly seems as if the shows are having a negative effect on the public’s opinion on the youth of today – they think we’re all alcoholics, sexually magnetised to anything with a remote pulse, and not to be trusted when we fly the nest. It is not a pretty picture.

Yet, as someone who went to Malia this summer to celebrate the end of A-levels in true style, I feel a kind of nostalgic, rose-tinted loyalty to this rich cultural hub in Crete. (I joke, of course, unless by ‘culture’ you mean burger and-pizza cuisine and doing a shoddy job of ‘the Dougie’ on the dancefloor).

But seriously, I do feel that these TV shows over-exaggerate the resorts in the name of cheap entertainment, and at the cost of my reputation. Admittedly, when I arrived last July, I did feel about as out of place as Will McKenzie in ­The Inbetweeners Movie, probably because my expectations were clouded by stories of teenagers dying from jumping off balconies and such shows as Sun, Sex and Suspicious Parents.

The next 10 days did, to me, look incredibly bleak, especially when we were dumped at the top of the infamous ‘Strip’ and the first thing we had to navigate was a sunburnt lad sprawled on the curb, passed out, and adorned in a kebab-stained ‘Malia fucks Ibiza’ vest. It soon became clear that alcohol is definitely at the forefront of everybody’s mind, forcing everyone into a ‘go hard or go home’ state of mind.

Speaking of going hard, sex is also at the top of the agenda. ­There really are no limits. Despite witnessing a couple having sex on the incredibly sanitary bar in ‘Safari’, a friend getting urinated on in ‘Candy’, being pushed off a bar and smashing my face on the floor, and having to survive without air-conditioning, I am not ashamed to admit that I would love to do it all again.

These TV shows pride themselves on mocking the naivety of teenagers that go there and exaggerating the worse possible side of the towns. ­Though some of it is true, it is not necessarily an obligatory experience. I would argue that, although there is a sense of ‘anything goes’, it rests on ‘anything-goes-as-far-as-you-want-it-to-go’. Admittedly some people do go out there to drink their own body weight in alcohol, sleep with as many people as they can, and wake up the next morning with no idea of their own name, let alone where they’re staying.

But, certainly for me, I went there just to have fun with my friends on a holiday that cost me less than £500. I felt ‘free’. I could sleep all day and party all night. And I never felt pressurised into anything. I drank, but not excessively, and always with one of our 11-strong group remaining sober.

Yes, there is a lot of inappropriate, and often offensive, groping. Yes, it is nothing short of ‘wild’. But in spite of this, it was one of the best times of my life. Indeed, I feel a kind of gratitude to Malia for teaching me a lot of useful lessons. For one, I was proud that I even survived. And I learnt a whole lot about personal safety. About saying no. About budgeting. About friendships. We all loosened up, but only to our maximum limits.

I guess my opinion is due to who I am and who I decided to travel with, but even so, it can’t help but affect how I view these TV shows. To me, Candy and Zig-Zag were no less sleazy than some of the clubs I’ve been to in the UK. ­The groping is still there, the sweat is still essential; the only difference was that the alcohol was a lot cheaper.

I think that, ultimately, everybody loves a bit of debauchery. It makes great entertainment. But there will always be a special place in my heart for Malia.