The lesson I had to learn - 3 of 3

Last, but not least is Lynn.

She actually worked on the same floor of the office I did. I never worked with her directly, but I knew who she was. It was a few months after Jullie had fled the scene, and I honestly wasn’t looking to get hooked up again, but something just seemed to click. She had quite a bit of backstory – she’d been married, her husband had left her for another woman and there were rumours that she herself had been having an affair with a married man on our floor. My friends didn’t really think too highly of her, to be honest, and I think that added a certain ‘frission’ to things when we started flirting via email.

As is the way of these things, I can’t remember when or why we started chatting, but we began exchanging friendly emails that slowly changed to become flirtatious. Our first date was a day out to Loch Lomond, which we kept secret because we didn’t want anyone in the office knowing just yet. This was at her urging, and even though I didn’t quite see the need, I went along with it because I was daft and excited and didn’t see it for the warning sign it was. Had I told any of my friends, I’m pretty sure they would have physically restrained me.

Lynn was a few years older than me, and obviously had more life experience. I guess there was something of the rebound in there, because she was nothing like Jill or Jullie. She didn’t smoke, hardly drank, and bought her clothes almost exclusively at Marks & Spencers. ‘Nice’ is the adjective I think most people would use to describe her.

My mum never took to her, neither did our cat Tigger, both of which were more warning signs I chose to ignore. I suppose it was kind of a whirlwind – we went from almost complete strangers to dating seriously, to me declaring myself to be in love within a couple of months. Definitely something of the rebound in there. In retrospect, I think Jullie hurt me more than I realised at the time, and Lynn was a subconscious reaction to it.

Deep down, I knew things weren’t really right between us. I’m not a particularly conservative kind of guy, and I’ve always been very laid back. Lynn was rather uptight, slightly prudish (outdoors at least), and while she wasn’t high-strung, she wasn’t particularly laid-back. I think I was as much of a rebound thing for her, as she was for me. I was younger, adventurous and probably nothing whatsoever like her husband or any man she’d dated before.

As time went on, I started to see signs of some of the issues she kept hidden. If prompted, she could get pretty badly worked up about her marriage and divorce. Even though I was barely out of my teens and flat broke, she had a problem with me living with my parents, even though she was doing the same. The one time I challenged her about that, she went off on one about how ‘her house’ had been stolen by her ex, etc.
She had a weird thing about me not sleeping over at her parent’s house, even when they were away one weekend. I remember distinctly we had sex one night late on and I fell asleep afterwards (which is actually odd for me – usually I’ve got a weird rush of energy afterwards) and she woke me up about 2 in the morning, and told me I’d have to leave and she’d drive me home.

What’s funny is that her parents were really, really nice people. I think they were two of the nicest people I’ve ever met – Elizabeth (Betty) and Alan. As much as Lynn had a problem with my living arrangements, she didn’t seem to be doing much about moving out of her parent’s house herself.

Eventually things ended. There wasn’t any drama, any cheating or anything like that. She started to grow distant and pull away eventually, but I was too much of a blouse to challenge her about it, and just stuck my head in the sand. She broke things off one day (it seemed to me) out of the blue. I can’t remember what she said, but I was in tears. I’d convinced myself that were going to be together forever, so my world fell apart. I went off the rails a wee bit, started doing the Goth thing, dyed my hair black, painted my fingernails black, bought a leather trenchcoat (which I still have today). My friends ribbed me mercilessly about the whole thing, but I didn’t listen to them, I just shut myself off.

I did all the stupid things you do when you’re heartbroken. I kept a bottle of her perfume so I could smell it when I wanted to torture myself, I sat and cradled pictures of her – the whole nine yards. Soon enough, I got a grip on myself. I woke up one day and decided enough was enough. I cleared my room out completely, binned everything of hers I could find and put the whole thing behind me.

When I look back, I realise I got over Lynn quicker than I thought I could or would. For a while I worried that I hadn’t really, and that I was carrying a torch for her secretly, but now that I’ve had time to think about it I realise that it was mostly a rebound thing, as I’ve said above.

It was maybe 6 or 7 months after that when I met Morag through a mutual friend from the office. It wasn’t love at first sight, but we certainly hit it off when we met on a Wednesday night at my friend’s place. The Saturday following, our friend was going to get a tattoo – Morag was already going to go with him for some mutual support, and I asked him if he wouldn’t mind my tagging along as well so that I could spend some time with Morag. He didn’t, so I did, and the rest is history.