Cheating was the best thing I ever did.

At the tender age of twenty years, I have been lucky enough to fall in love 3 times. Sometimes I think I fall in love too easy. Or maybe I have just been lucky. Or have I merely followed the way I think relationships should go, conducive of media pressures?

The reason I bring this up is a recent actualisation of my long oppressed feelings towards a guy, who is relatively new in my life. Warren, a colleague from work, had given me the most emotionally confusing, yet amazing 6 months of my life. Trying to work out what I want, and my feelings for him amongst this, has been indescribably scary. But it has also brought me to some sort of awakening.

Intrigued?! I hope so.

I’ll start with the past. My first boyfriend, Peter, was a great guy. I was 15 and he was two years older than me in school. He played the drums and was a little bit rebellious, without being too mad for my church going parents. We really were madly in love, but in the end we grew more into best friends than anything else. I don’t regret my time with any of my past boyfriends, but as Peter and I figured out how this whole ‘relationship’ idea worked, we realise we were growing apart and we had become too different. We had a few months of being on and off, and then one night I met Matt.

I was just turned 18 and I was enjoying going out with my friends to bars and clubs I never could have before. As Peter was older, he had been there, done that. I met Matt on NYE after Peter and I had a huge fight. Matt was popular, just a year older than me and clearly worked out a lot. I thought he has definitely too good looking for a slightly quirky, rocky girl like me. But we had fun together and he took my number. We texted back and forth for a bit, nothing too flirty even, until I broke up with Peter a few weeks later, I had had enough of being ignored. Then things changed. We fell in love and had a great year together. We ended up at the same university and I loved that we spent so much time together and could enjoy going out together and with groups of friends, something Peter would never allow me to do. After we were together a year, Matt got a job as a Trainee Paramedic, and dropped out of university. It was great, a fantastic opportunity to have a brilliant career. I was so supportive, even though his training meant I only saw him once a week. For the first few months I made the effort to go visit him some nights after he had finished his training in Belfast, but when I realised the effort wasn’t being reciprocated, I quickly became bored and felt like there had to be something more.

Then we have the present. Warren is six years older than me, funny as hell, a Civil Engineering graduate, currently working in Tesco. Imagine Clark Kent, that’s what he looks like. I started in Tesco in May. Matt and I were okay, but nowhere near as good as we were. For the first while, Warren and I didn’t really speak. We were being nasty; we just didn’t know each other.

One night I was out with my two best friends, Rebecca and Rachel. We met a guy James, who it turns out was good friends with Warren. Drunkenly, (but thank god) Rachel and I decided it would be a good idea to text Warren on James phone, and do a bit of flirting. I had always though he was good looking, but as I was in a relationship and he was older, it never crossed my mind. That night I got his number. We started flirting via text. Then we started sexting. It started as a bit of fun, I don’t think either of us ever though it would come to anything. We started getting closer; I liked his sharp sense of humour and his emotional and well as academic intelligence.

Then, there was the first night we kissed. I met him in Tesco car park. (Classy, I know.) He got into my car and we talked for hours about absolutely everything. And we could have talked for longer, but the sun was coming up. For the first time in my life, I felt like someone really understood me, and someone was actually interested. He seemed to want to know everything about me. The sexual tension was still there, we just realised; ‘Shit, this might be more than sex.’

We kissed. I freaked out.

I felt so guilty; I never wanted to be the girl who cheated on her boyfriend. It wasn’t who I was. I was meant to be loyal, trustworthy, and honest. But we kept coming back to each other. At the time I read a story about passion and saw the word ‘inevitability’. To me, this described us.

But I hated not being in control of my own emotions. I tried to do what I thought other people wanted, what I thought was right, and what other people expected. So I told Warren we had to stop. The look on his face when I told him this was the exact moment I knew I was in love with him.

Things were weird for a few days, but it gave me the chance to get my head around the fact that things with Matt were over. I secretly resented Matt, how did he not know I was in love with someone else? How could he not see? I wanted to be with Warren. In every way.

So I broke it off with Matt. It was hard, he was oblivious to it all, so it was a complete shock. I have never looked back. I regret hurting him, but I don’t regret what I did.

Warren and I got together. The sex was amazing (and still is), after all the months of built up sexual tension. He makes me laugh like no one else. He makes me feel appreciated. He protects me, but not in a patronising way. We have both intelligent conversation, and the most stupid, random and childish conversation. I am head over heels.

For the first time in my life, I am scared. Scared of this disappearing, scared of what the future brings, and scared of how good things could be.

It’s inevitable. It’s out of my control, and I fucking love it.