c'est la vie. a reader requested that i tackle the topic of cheating. it could just be my mom posing as a reader, but i'll assume it's someone i don't know. my stance on cheating is that it happens. sure it's unethical, unbelievable, and entirely despicable but it happens. cheating is almost never a point-a to point-b proposition. "i saw him and right then and there i decided to cheat on my boyfriend/husband." cheating usually involves a series of steps and half-steps. business lunches lead to casual dinners lead to hushed conversations lead to cuddle buddies lead to cheating. if cheating were as easy to avoid as "stay away from so-and-so," no one would ever unwillingly cheat. however, people do cheat, and i daresay that more people cheat than one would think. i want to say that around tweny-seven percent of all couples have had an instance of cheating at some time or other.

so how do you stop cheating? well, if it's true that "you are only as faithful as your options," then you stop cheating by cutting your significant other off from everyone and everything around them. i'm against this of course, but i must say, it would be the most effective way to stop cheating if it were done properly. however, this type of caging just causes too many headaches and emotional strains. do you know how hard it is to keep up with someone else's emails, phone calls, who called when's, etc. playing private eye takes too much effort, and hiring a real gumshoe is just expensive. so really, it hardly makes any sense to be a jealous insecure freak.

much better to just live with the fact that cheating happens. cute baby seals get gobbled up by cunning killer whales, shit happens okay? this "i can't believe he/she cheated on me thing" is just overrated. talk about melodrama. lots of things are unbelievable, is it really that hard to wrap your mind around the fact that someone was more attractive (in all senses of the word) than you -- for at least a split second? loyalty is nothing to scoff at, but we're human and we're fallible. that's what the bible tells us anyway. so yeah, cheating happens, deal with it. earth-crushing as that revelation may be, why's it such a shock? what's harder to imagine, green aliens from mars or cheating? cheating happens every day, you should be forewarned by the world around you.

and the thing is, everyone who's in a relationship realizes this. you can't be jealous without knowing what it feels like to be on the other side. people understand how common having mixed feelings for two people are. guys know what bastards they -- and all other guys -- really are. girls understand how they can use their wiles to seduce men. everyone knows the capacity and the opportunity for cheating that everyone else possesses, because we are fundamentally all the same. we take what we can and try to get away with anything we can. would you cheat if you didn't have to suffer from self-induced guilt or the fear of being caught? i'm gonna say "yes."

i mean, haven't you ever had similar romantic feelings for more than one person at a time? you think it's fate that's pulls two people together? not really. sometimes choice-1a falls through because of some circumstance, so then choice-1b ends up being the "winner." taking a very non-romantic view, do you realize how arbitrary love is? it's a matter of timing, chance, luck, and a dash of "this is what i want (now)."

nobody really intends to cheat, at least nobody would say so out loud. something about voicing things makes them way too permanent; as if suddenly the air around you might be called to testify at your trial. cheating first occurs in the mind, when you think nasty dirty thoughts and then reprimand yourself for thinking these things. slowly these thoughts turn into intentions and then into "wow, if i just sit right there, or touch her now, i think something could happen."

the opportunities for cheating are infinite, and to fight against this sort of thing is like bailing water out of a leaky boat. i figure you just have to trust that the other person won't cheat and be done with it. my take on it is that if the other person does cheat, i'll give them one "get out of jail free" pass, just like in monopoly. after that, they'd have to choose between me or the other person. if my significant other wanted to be with someone else, so be it. see ya. there's no sense in fighting for someone that doesn't want to be there.

if it sounds like i'm pro-cheating. i'm not. i just think that cheating is a fact of life. it's not always relationship threatening nor something i'd hang a break up on. while i do think cheating is a very valid reason for breaking up with someone, i understand (and could quickly forgive) how cheating can happen. "i can't imagine ever cheating on my girlfriend." well, i can. and i think most people can too. and i don't necessarily think "once a cheater, always a cheater." in fact, many one time cheaters are so mortified by their transgression that they're scared straight, and end up being less likely to cheat than the norm.

vigilance and an expectation for the worst are the best ways to combat cheating. note i said vigilance and not suffocation. i personally hate having to answer a significant other's questions about "so, do you like so-and-so, could you like her? why not why not?" there are varying degrees of attraction among all people, and if you want to hear the truth, you have to be able to separate reality from possibility. what kind of answer is acceptable here? will you tell the whole truth? no way, because that'll just bring up a shitstorm. so you kind of white lie, and soft-shoe it. or wait, that's just me, sorry.

anyway, my final thought on cheating is this. if you do it, you are responsible for it. you have to own up to it. there may be many circumstances surrounding what happened -- you may not be happy, you were crying out for attention, she was really hot, you might have been drunk, he was really persistent -- but ultimately at some point, you made a choice. you decided to become a cheater. you cheated. so stand up straight and deal with the consequences. there's nothing worse than a cheater who then grovels and says "i didn't mean it...." you cheated, you got caught, face the reaper with some dignity at least. own up to your actions.


actually wait, some cheating i don't understand. like saved by the bell slater cheating on the doritos girl the night before they were to wed. are you stupid man? are you insane? that kind of cheating i don't understand or condone. like at all.