Now I’ve had my fair share of fancying guys at work. Not so much in the all female NHS departments, but in pub work I fancied everyone, chefs, waiters, barmen, I am not fussy. Drooling whilst on a shift was not an odd occurrence for me; neither was everyone knowing at work apart from that person. Although perhaps they did know and just chose to ignore my tragic attempts at flirting. I once hid in a cardboard box that I jumped out of to “surprise” my victim. Surprise them I did, as they just missed punching my face.

After a series of flirtation fails with guys at work and the very rare successes, success is classed a drunken night out snog that clearly one of us regretted the next day. I officially gave up on the work-dating scenario that I had been promised by some chic flick film at one point in my life.

5 years later and in an office job I was notoriously known for being a workaholic. This means sticking headphones in my ears, getting my job done and making as much money as possible. Working in an environment with minimal men, I could focus better and become efficient, no, more, drooling.

Sat at my desk in workaholic mode – eating tomato soup with copious amounts of omega seeds in I get disturbed.

“Nat this is @%$£^ you’ll be working with him on this project”

I look up. Knowing that most people that I have worked with, within the company have been old, ugly, or far too posh for me and my work attire to go near, until I had washed. Stood in front of me was an attractive man. Shit.

“Hi, nice to meet you” –attractive man

Aware that I currently had tomato soup on my chin and a good sum of seeds in my teeth, I was unable to do anything but blush. Not just blush, I went bright red. An uncontrollable heat travelled out of my face and I felt like the sun.

I mumbled something stupid as I tried to cover my mouth with my hand.

“Maybe we should come back later??”

YOU THINK??

They turned and left, both looking confused. I turn to my colleagues who were all staring at me.

“What the hell happened to your face??”

Sooo it wasn’t just all in my mind that, that actually happened. Clearly my face had turned so red I basically had a sign above my head saying "take the piss out of me"

This then continued to happen every time he entered my office, or I called him, or someone mentioned his name. This wasn’t just fancying someone, it was humiliation. I giggled, fumbled over my words, my boss was even informed about it. Everyone would stare at me whenever he walked to discuss something, and I would have to discretely excuse myself before try and calm my face down before attempting to have a serious conversation.

A series of incidents happened after that day that led me to believe that attractive guy would never see me in any form of desirable light.

*I tripped over my own foot and fell to me knees right in front of him.

*I turned up to work dead early with not a scrap of make up on my face (a privilege for only those I have known for years) and a form of art teacher attire. I travelled down in the lift to my office, when the doors opened, he was stood in front of me. His face said “Is that a troll or has someone poured boiling water over Natalie’s face”

*He waved at me on the street, I waved vigorously back… he wasn’t waving at me.

*My colleague asked him out for me, he never replied.

*I stared at him for that bit too long thinking I was wearing sunglasses, they were my normal glasses (this happened a lot).

*I sent him a video of a cat playing the keyboard.

The finale, we were all out on a work night out and he snogged my colleague.

Don’t ever let your colleagues see your weaknesses – they enjoy it far too much.