Hello. So last week I went to a school reunion for the 20th anniversary of my hometown school. I’m not the kind of person who enjoy this kind of social events, but for this time I made an exception. My old friend from that time asked me to go and I thought I would be funny (spoiler alert: it wasn’t funny). After the event and speeches, all my classmates and I went to a restaurant. I sat in front of a girl that I had a bit of a crush on when I was a kid. During the dinner I was mostly in silence, they were talking about gossips, old memories, relationships, comparisons… At some point she talked about a boyfriend she had. She said that she cheated on him like 10 or 20 times, she didn’t know the exact number. The thing is… She was laughing about it, and so the others. “I told him I cheated on him, I don’t know how many times…” She said, like nothing happened. My ex girlfriend told me that she also cheated on his fiancée some time before the wedding. She always said that infidelities are always there, like it is normal… But is it? I’ve been thinking about it for some time now, because I know some other cases. But I don’t understand… There is no sense of morality ot loyalty or empathy?
You have to consider a few things here. You’re not the only one with social anxiety at that event. Your reaction is not to go in the first place (my MO as well) or to sit quietly hoping it shall pass with haste. Others talk too much. School reunions are such a rich vein for neurosis because you’re guaranteed to be judged by your peers. Peers who knew you very well when you weren’t a more well put together person yet. Few people behave like themselves there. So if the woman says she cheated a million times lol, her neurons may be on the fritz as well because she’s more thinking about how she dunked Sharon’s head in the toilet in freshman year or whatever. And that memory is haunting. And she’s sitting just over there! WHY HASN’T SHE SAID ANYTHING? … So you need to have a salt shaker handy for anything you hear.
Also, some people like attention and will say anything to get it. People like to construct a public persona around their worst character traits, the ones they’re unable to change. It’s like they’re putting a cool leather jacket on, aviator shades too. To distract themselves from their inner monolog, which very well might be telling them what a piece of shit they are.
And cheating is common. In my social group I know of a handful of cases. Drunk and horny, sober and crushing - the motivations are on a scale. In some relationships these secrets never get revealed, in others they’ve made the bond stronger, others have broken up. I would say very few people brag about it but hey, we contain multitudes. Some people end up in an unhealthy game of hurt oneup(wo)manship. Relationships are hard fucking work.
It is also a different picture when you have children with your partner. The willingness to forgive infractions increases for the good of the children.
And while centuries of indoctrination of monogamy and loyalty to your spouse can make this hard to accept: some people make open relationships work. I think it’s more often than not the last stepping stone to disaster but if you can make it work, vaya con dios. I have a hard time with it but I’m trying not to judge.
None of this needs to change how you feel about cheating though.
I’m not sure what kind of infidelity happens in high school, but I suspect if someone cheated on me by kissing someone else while we were in high school, I wouldn’t be upset, mostly because the nature of relationships in high school I don’t think of as long lasting. I’ve never cheated nor been cheated on though.
I agree. In high school is different. We all fall in love with a different person every day. But I think she was talking about her mid twenties.
Infidelity is somewhat common but I would say it’s not “normal” at all to openly discuss and laugh about it at dinner with a bunch of people that you haven’t seen for years.
Seriously- wtf is wrong with these people? That one person sounds especially horrible.
Also - don’t go to any more reunions. I’ve managed to avoid 40 years of that shit and I like to believe that I’m happier for it!
Yes, Right? It was too much to talk about it. Definitely that was my first and last reunion
I went to my 10 year to make sure I was right. I was. I haven’t gone to any others and don’t even get asked.
The only thing I get from meeting again people I haven’t seen for decades is to, using the abilities I’ve been acquiring with time and life experience to read other people beyond the superficial, find out that
mostmany haven’t really mature much from the people I knew and at times how much I misjudged them back in the old days when I was very naive and ran around pretty lost.The “I’m better than that” feeling would be highly satisfying if I was a different kind of person, but it’s actually just sad that some people turn out to either having always been less than I made them up to be in my mind or failed to actually turn into well balanced mature adults.
The other possibility is that it’s all in my mind and I’m just deceiving myself, as having become more more self-deluded when it comes to others with time looks exactly the same from the inside as having become a little wiser in interpreting others.
My ex was always rambling about how men were always unfaithful, “oops I slipped and my dick ended up inside her” she used to say, to describe how easily men are unfaithful. She made it absolutely clear she wanted a monogamous relationship.
I was never unfaithful to her, but of course it turned out she was herself unfaithful numerous times, and it was crazy how bad she was at hiding it, almost like she wanted me to break up. So I did, and good riddance!!!
Later when I was moving in with a new girlfriend, and I was collecting some of my things at my ex, she was all dressed up, and all over me, kissing me and trying to win me back. She tried to kiss me on my mouth but I turned my head so it was on the cheek.
My girlfriend was waiting in the car outside, and she saw the lipstick on my cheek when I came back, obviously not too happy about it. But I explained it was all my ex and not me.
Lucky for me she didn’t ditch me, and later my new girlfriend agreed to become my wife, and we’ve been together for 20 years now! 🥰A friend of mine had just bought a very expensive apartment in Copenhagen together with his girlfriend. The papers were signed and the deal was closed. There are a few days where you can get out of the deal, and in that period my friend was told his girlfriend had been unfaithful. He didn’t believe it at first, but the day after the deadline for getting out of the purchase, his girlfriend broke up!
I’m not saying women are worse than men, but the idea that men are more unfaithful than women is bullshit. There are more men than women in the relevant age groups, so obviously on average women have more sex than men do. That’s simply a statistical necessity.
Hah I’ve never heard the Pigeon Hole Principle applied to infidelity. Pecker Hole Principle?
I never heard of this Principle, despite having applied this myself to male/female dating society (including infidelity).
I always imagined it as a Pairing Musical Chairs Principle, where m and n are the amount of chairs and people in team A, and n and m in team B, where n > m.
Thus team A mostly rushes for any chair doing little else, while team B either don’t bother playing the same game and instead decorate their respective chairs at team A or they fight for the taken chair that’s always greener than the free ones.It’s math principle. But it assumes the massively oversimplified scenario that you’re pairing up groups A and B in basically one go. This is nowhere near reflective of reality.
As for your description…how do I put this delicately…I think you’re overthinking it. I wish you well, bud, I really do.
Pigeon Hole Principle
Thanks I never heard of that, but that seems to perfectly describe the principle.
I think the quote was “that’s what high school was, cheating and bad lunches”. Or something like that anyway. I never cheated. I don’t think I ever got cheated on either. I think in junior and high school a lot of people are figuring themselves out and make a lot of mistakes. But I think if someone is bragging about it as an adult, that’s just shitty.
Cheating is like divorce it’s common if you look at the percentage of relationships. They are both less common if you look at at individuals. Cheaters always cheat again, those who get divorced often do so again.
For some people it is pretty common. For others, it isn’t. The thing is: the people that treat it as a common everyday thing expect that to be the case for everyone - so if you interact with them routinely, you’d probably think that everybody is out to cheat at all times, but that’s definitely not the norm.
Monogamy is socially imposed, not a biological prerogative. Therefore yes, cheating is common because social norms can only do so much to override basic human nature.
The natural human relation is a long term partnership without sexual exclusivity, which is common in other primates as well. This is why people cheat but still want to stay with their partners.
Found the cheater
I have literally never cheated and have a,ways been in monogamous relationships . But those are the facts.
If you don’t want to be monogamous, don’t, just be polyamorous and date other polyamorous people. It’s a really bad excuse for cheating when there’s plenty of relationship arrangements where this isn’t a problem. There’s no need to deceive unwilling people and cheat on them when you can find partners who think the same as you and you don’t need to cheat on in the first place. You’re still dealing with other people with feelings on the end.
I’d have to really go out of my way to cheat on my wife when the only rule is to have safe sex (or be safe in general).
Wait. I never said it was ok. I was just stating the facts, I’ve never cheated myself and have always been in monogamous relationships.
This. But even in polyamorous relationships there can be cheating, which is simply going against the wishes and rules you set when going into the relationship. While some poly relationships are more open regarding casual or committed sexual relations with other people, some aren’t. Cheating in every regard is bad, doesn’t matter the relationship type.
No, people who commonly do bad things, will often justify it to themselves and others by thinking most people do the same thing. And despite their protesting and arguing, they’re pretty much always wrong.
I’ve heard more than one petty thief confidently claim that “everyone” steals something like a candybar when they go to the store. And it’s why there are so many stories of cheaters accusing their partner of cheating.
In summary: Projection.
The chosen form of most accusations can be explained by the one doing the accusing having reached their own conclusions about the likely actions and motivations of others by thinking “What would I do in their place?”.
I personally don’t cheat, wouldn’t cheat, being Demi/ace. But unfortunately everyone around me either cheats or has an open relationship then gets jealous when their SO gets some action. A lot of them have STDs.
I don’t think I know anyone who’s cheated. But I also hang out with a lot of polyamorous people, where cheating is possible but I feel like is less common.
Married 20 years, never thought abut cheating, got divorced , and remarried 15 years now, and never think about cheating. If you commit to somebody, they should be your one and only, IMO.
I think it would be less common if people accepted that monogamy is not the norm. Just be honest with yourself and your partner(s). If you want a monogamous relationship - commit to it. If not - don’t start one. I found out that I am polyamorous the hard way by thinking I am some kind of monster because I couldn’t just be with one partner. I did not cheat but kind of always had other love interests. Fortunately, my partner of 20+ years now was able to accept this as part of me. And now there is no risk of cheating for either of us because we can just be honest if there is someone else. It doesn’t change my love for him, it even made our bond stronger because it needs even more loyalty and acceptance of the needs of your partner to let them be.
Some people are just shittier than others. What they look like on the outside has no bearing on their inner beauty.
Cheating makes stories, gets talked about by both sides and is overall contentious. Fidelity is literally having nothing to tell, so when a cheater talks, it seems like everyone is cheating, but that is far from the truth.
Best answer.
A lot of people cheat at some point in their lives, but most have the good sense to be less flippant about it. People who act like this are not the kind of people that you would want a relationship with anyway. You’re not rare, but they’re not common either.
