Episode 1

When it was all rosy………………………….

After meeting Steve in a pub and him telling my friend that he liked me, we started texting. I was blown away as to why a handsome man with bulging muscles would be interested in a gawky teenager. Steve had a full head of dark brown hair and piercing blue eyes, a nice tan glowing on his arms and face, probably about 5ft 8. I had no dress sense, drove a terrible car, didn’t bother doing any make up and my dark brown hair was scraped back off of my face. I clearly remember wearing a vest top with pastel coloured stripes and a pair of denim culottes although I can’t remember the shoes I had on, probably a pair of tatty trainers. I wasn’t sure what he saw in me or why I was so special but this was where it started. Steve was living with his parents whilst he renovated the house he had just bought, about 30 minutes drive away from where we lived. Wow, an actual adult with their own house. The young, impressionable girl was about to start her first serious relationship, completely in awe of this man . I had had a couple of boyfriends but nothing serious, a couple of one night stands but this was it……. he wanted me and thought I was for him. How wrong could I have been?

6 months of dating was bliss, he took me for dinners and stayed over when my Mum was on holiday. He treated me like a princess and we were inseparable. Constantly texting to try and find out as much as we could about each other, I was hooked and falling hard. Imagine that feeling when after 6 months, you find out that Steve is actually 40 years old and not 29 as he first said. Steve had also been married and divorced. Red flag number 1.

‘Oh babe, imagine I had told you I was 40. You wouldn’t have been interested in me’. I fell for that line, only to realise years later that a 40 year old being attracted to a teenager wasn’t right.

Then came the sob stories about the ex-girlfriends. What was I going to find out and what did I see at the time? These stories lead me to the person I have become and the determination I had to start my own business, the fear of just going for it and how my (now) significant other gave me the confidence to be who I am now.