Just like walking on a gangplank...

Looking back on it, she couldn't believe that she had been so naive...and so desperate to prove her womanhood and independence. It was the only relationship in her life that qualified as a "fling,"
the only time she had ever been swept away. For that man, for no other man before or since, for that man alone, she had put aside her morals and principles and commonsense, heeding only the urgent desires. She had told herself that it was Romance with a capital R, not just love but the Big Love. Actually she had just been weak, vulnerable, and eager to make a fool of herself. Later, when she realized Mr. Wonderful had lied to her and just used her with cold, and cynical disregard for her feelings, when she discovered that she had just given herself to a man who was utterly without respect for her and who lacked even a minimal sense of responsibility for what he had done, so she had been deeply ashamed. Eventually, she realized there was a point at which shame and remorse became self-indulgent and nearly as lamentable as the sin that had occasioned those emotions, so she put the shabby episode behind her and vowed to forget it. She accepted that it was such a foolish and such regrettable decision she had ever made...and adults could sometimes be just as dumb and confused as little kids. It made her want to cry by such foolishness...she just made a complete fool of herself.

(only an excerpts...)