This topic has been on my mind lately as I am leading on some exciting new projects at work, and it made me reflect on how far I've come from the Pickme I was half a decade ago.

At my previous company, I had an office romance. The guy in question showed no interest in me when I first started there (Red Flag #1) then several months later out of the blue lovebombed me HARD. And I fell for it, hook, line and sinker (little did I know that the previous girl in the company had stopped sleeping with him and he needed new narcissistic supply).

Lesson #1 If a guy is flirting with you at work - he has done this before. This is not his first rodeo. He's confident hitting on you because he's had success in the past. These men will turn on the charm and make you feel special - you're not. Don't be flattered by his attention. He's done a scan of the perimeter and made a calculated guess that you're the most likely candidate to fall for his bullshit. Men like this will typically target someone new in the company as they will be less likely to be aware of his reputation. They will turn on the charisma so you can't imagine that such a charming, wonderful guy would ever be a serial fuckboy,

First, he blabbed to everyone in the office that I was his girlfriend.

Lesson #2 If you're sleeping together - he will tell everyone. He'll be all "sure babe, me too" when you say you want to be discreet, but rest assured he will be telling his bros in the office everything. Don't have sex with a co-worker if you're not comfortable with EVERYONE you work with knowing about it. He WANTS people to be gossiping about this. If he wanted to keep his personal and professional life separate, he wouldn't be having sex with people he works with.

Then he started sleeping with the ex again. Then started sleeping with another woman in the company after I dumped him, while he was triangulating me, the ex and the new girl, trying to make us all jealous and compete for his attention.

Lesson #3 Men like this thrive on drama. He gets an ego boost from feeling like the office stud. He doesn't give a fuck about maintaining personal or professional boundaries and will treat the office as a hunting ground. He also has far less to lose because a woman's reputation will ALWAYS suffer more. These men will also typically target women in junior positions because they're more expendable and have less power and clout if they wanted to report him/make a move against him. He will exploit that power imbalance because he knows he won't face consequences for his actions. I later discovered that THREE women had left the company as a result of his antics. That's right. These women chose to walk away from promising jobs while this guy got to continue fucking with abandon.

Everyone I worked with knew about the drama. My personal life was a freaking telenovella and I had to deal with this bullshit for months before I was offered a better role in a different company in a different city. I dropped all those old acquaintances, moved states and started as a blank slate.

5 years later, I am leading my own small division, my colleagues treat me with respect and my performance reviews are glowing. Male colleagues defer to my professional judgment, and I am soon due another raise.

I also keep my professional life strictly professional. I don't engage in gossip, I don't socialize with my colleagues outside the office, and I don't share details of my personal life with anyone. The only conversations I have with men in the office are related to work. I don't flirt. I don't have crushes. I keep things polite and professional at all times. Nobody gossips about me and my male colleagues always conduct themselves with courtesy and deference when they speak to me.

There are many LVM in my company. The married ones that flirt with young interns, the fuckboys who sniff around for vulnerable prey. I can spot them a mile away. None of them pull that shit with me because men are very good at calculating what they can get away with. I walk into the office every morning with my head high, knowing that I am valued, admired respected. That people aren't gossiping about me. That my personal life is not in the open for people to dissect over the water-cooler. I breathe easy knowing that my self-respect is intact and I have a bright, glittering career ahead of me. And nothing in the world is worth jeopardizing that for. Mother Life taught me a valuable lesson and I was smart enough to heed it.

And before people come in here saying "I met my husband at work and we're happily married!", sure, cool. Good for you. Just like some women have sex on the first date and end up marrying the guy. You are the exception.

And if after reading this, you're still thinking but where am I going to meet men?? Ask yourself this - is being single really worse than potentially torpedoing your entire career?