Randy Workmen.

‘You can suck my willy next time!’ said next door’s workman.

All I could think was that I didn’t need anything else to do and then he was gone before I could tell him to F*** off, so taken aback I was by his ‘invitation.’

He had been round for a cup of tea a few times, changed some kitchen light transformers for me, charged me fifty quid, thank you very much and taken to sending the odd text which wasn’t about when I was going to be in.

I was flattered, it has to be said.  A husband who neglected me and regularly insulted me had knocked my confidence and in the absence of any other attention, a man much younger than me – not an ugly or fat or bald one – was becoming a bit fresh. 

The most disturbing thing of all was how he had harped on about his two beautiful daughters, one of whom was going to be starting the same school that my eldest son attends.

Was the man mad then?  He was married – not unhappily it transpired – to his first love and was regretting not having sewn wild oats.  Did he target bored housewives, I had asked him, lonely single mums, vulnerable women in general?  What about his wife?  His kids?  Had he not seen Fatal Attraction?

He had talked football with my two boys prior to this encounter and I flirted with the idea of how nice it would be to have a man around, but it was never, ever going to be him.  I thought he'd got it. 

This was a while ago and now I have a boyfriend – intelligent, decent, loyal - everything he isn’t, yet I still see him around i.e. at school drop offs and pick ups and I wonder every time why, when a man who has everything – a good business, a lovely home and family - they are so intent on bolloxing it all up. 

And I think of the women they leave behind.  And the children whose lives they might also possibly forever blight with with a great deal of pain.  I think of what a wanker my Dad was and what sort of idiot preys on the poor desperate people who sometimes feel they’d do anything for a hug, but the truth is, when the push comes to shove, actually, most of us won’t.  

This was obviously not the first or last time he was trying his luck and perhaps my friendliness and need for him not to leave me in the lurch, plus talk of my divorce had given off signs he read wrongly, but,surely, I am not the only one to land such surprising advances from, say, a randy workman?