'I was someone's booty call for nine months. Then I found out he had a girlfriend.'

As told to Helen Vnuk.

He was a couple of years above me at school, the best friend of a family friend. He looked like Thor. He was very sporty and charismatic. All the girls would swarm over him.

We met again at a pub one night when I was 21, and because I knew him via the mutual friend, we started chatting. He left his friends and sat with me for the whole night and was buying me drinks. I was like, “Oh, the god of the guys that I know is taking an interest!” We ended up going home together and sleeping together. That went on for nine months.

We would go out for dinner, we would hook up. I wasn’t looking for anything serious at the time so it was quite fun. He would ghost me for a week or two at a time, but then as soon as I got a bit weird about it, he would come back.

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Then it turned into booty calls. I was like, “Oh, the booty calls are annoying, but I’m just going to go along with it for now.” And every three or four weeks we would do something like go for a walk together at the beach or go out to dinner together. So there was a bit of mixed messaging.

I would invite him to events, like a black-tie gala dinner, and he would cancel on the day. So he’d lead me on, lead me on, lead me on, then just suddenly disappear.

It got to the point where I was like, “So do you want to start dating properly?” and he said, “Look, I don’t think I really want to, to be honest. I hope that doesn’t offend you.” So I was like, “Okay, let’s fizzle this out then,” and that was all well and good.

He would still booty call me at three o’clock in the morning and expect me to come over and I would be like, “What the f—k, no!”

It was about a month later after the nine months finished that I was talking to our mutual friend and he was like, “You know he has a girlfriend,” and I was like, “Wait, what?” and he was like, “Yeah, he has one, and has had one for like a while.”

She was a girl who had popped up in a photo with him on Facebook. She had put it up and tagged him. I had just assumed it was his cousin in Brisbane, but it was his girlfriend.

I was like, “Oh my God, we were sleeping together for six months of their relationship! Do I tell her, or do I just let her figure out this guy for herself?” Because she lived in Brisbane and he was in Sydney, I thought, “You know what, this probably isn’t going to last long.”

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There were times he would still booty call me, and I would say, “You have a girlfriend. That’s so disgusting.” He was in complete denial. He would say, “You’re saying things that you’ve heard on the grapevine. I like to look at the facts because I’m a policeman.” Or he would say, “I can see you’re very agitated about this. Would you like to talk about it over a drink?” Oh my God! I was dying.

I dated three cops in a row. I was drawn to the macho personality of an alpha male, but I’ve realised that they’re actually not the greatest people.

They think they can do anything because they protect the world.

I just laughed at the situation. Then, a few months ago, I found out that he and his girlfriend got engaged. It’s so awful for her. So bad.

Looking back, I think I wanted to throw myself into something that wasn’t serious, just to see what it was like. I learnt a lot. I now know what it’s like to be treated by a man with no standards at all. I was just shocked that anyone could act that way because I’d never act that way towards someone.

Because I was young, I was kind of naive. I didn’t really know the warning signs. The booty call is a warning sign. If they don’t want to go out in public with you, that’s another warning sign. And if they’re not going to reply to your messages for a week, they’re just not interested.

The guy I’m seeing now won’t go five hours without replying to me. He’s the most gorgeous human.

Feature Image: Getty.