There are two types of angry teachers – the ones who shout and rage and the ones who tell you they are very disappointed in you.

The shouty ones tend to have the impact of striking a match – their spark of rage is strong and bright, but it fizzles out quickly while the disappointed ones are like a large candle, burning through you slowly, leaving a lasting, lingering trail. I always found the disappointed teachers were the best ones, too, who didn’t need to raise their voices and left me feeling terrible for ages, that I had let them down when they had put so much faith in me.

Disappointment is such a lingering feeling – it can take years to die down. The same can be said for disappointment in the bedroom.  It’s an old friend of mine, though, whom I first encountered in my student days.

The second person I ever had sex with was a hunky blonde guy I thought was completely out of my league. But somehow we ended up in my room in halls after a night in the student bar. He talked his way into my pants, which wasn’t hard when I had been trying my best puppy dog eyes on him all evening. But then it was quick in and quick out, literally. And I was left wondering if it actually happened at all. The only proof was the way in which he completely ignored me the next day and never spoke to me again.

Then there was Mr Para-phimosis (see my post of 4th February 2013). I had fancied him for weeks and even engineered meeting him (I got oddly bold about things like this in my mid-twenties) by shoving a note under his door – this sounds like a stalker, but he lived on the floor above me in the flats I was living in at the time, so I wasn’t staking out his house or anything…

Things went reasonably well until we found ourselves in his bed. Too tight foreskin meant painful, slow, agonising sex for both of us – his pain physical and mine mental. I sometimes wonder if the poor guy ever got his problem sorted out. .

Then, what is traditionally supposed to be the most important sex ever – the big wedding night. I was totally exhausted after what seemed to be two days in one and my ‘up do’ seemed to contain more pins than the average sewing box which meant I was in the bathroom of our hotel room for half an hour trying to pull them out. The end result was something like an old witch with over back-combed hair and running make up.

By this point my husband had fallen asleep waiting for me to re-emerge so I had to jump on the bed, shouting ‘oi!’ Not very romantic or lady-like, I agree, but I was so tired I had lost all decorum but was determined to consummate our nuptials in the traditional way. A half-hearted effort followed.

But it is disappointments that stay as strong in the memory as the spectacular rip-roaring shag marathons. The not-so-bads and okays are quickly forgotten.

So I have learnt to enter proceedings open-minded and see what happens. High hopes are too often dashed.

Of course with The Man, I was open-minded but hopeful – I had hoped something would happen with him for a long time and when it did, it exceeded expectations. He is largely to blame (or maybe to thank) for the Drunken Slut Mum on your screen.