Cheating. Cheating can be painful, wrecking, but also gloriously satisfying. Having seen the best and worst of cheating I find the subject quite interesting. Although many avoid the act, some people just can’t help themselves.
Talking to a friend the other day who’d just cheated on his girlfriend, I was trying to extract from him his reasons for doing something so commonly known to cause pain. While he was torn with the attraction to the girl, he was so sure of his feelings for his girlfriend. What is it that makes people who claim to be in love so able to drop all sense of … well… sense, and do something knowing full well that it could be such a mistake? Are we so unsatisfied as people, needing the constant reassurance of being wanted, that we can’t see what we have?
Sure enough we all have our reasons for cheating. While some do it out of pure boredom and are just looking for a little passion in their life, some do it out of spite or loss of self-security. When an ex cheated on me I was hurt, yes, but also forgiving because of his honesty. In my opinion, everyone makes mistakes, but when I slipped up he instantly ended it. This hypocrisy was frustrating but also made me question the value of honesty in a relationship. If in the end being honest means potentially losing something good, maybe it's better to live with little dirty secrets.
Learning from past mistakes and a wise friend, I decided not to ruin things with the dark haired CPF by telling him about drama with the ‘indie boy’. While I had been frustrated by the CPF's behaviour with a ‘friend’ of his, I had met up with indie boy with the intention of making myself feel better. Having friends who were also angry with the dark haired CPF, and the support of Strongbow I guess I had taken to moment and run with it. But telling the dark haired CPF was not an option. As we were not anything 'official', just close personal friends. I realised that I had no obligation to tell him, just as he would have no obligation to tell me. Yet, because of the number of times he spoke about not kissing or being with anyone else since we had met, I felt almost… Guilty. For the time being it wasn’t burning a hole in my soul. However, playing around Hyde Park with the wise friend and her gorgeous lab, coming to this conclusion did create a hole in the sole of my favourite pair of pumps. So, I decided that a new pair of shoes would be necessary to take my mind off of everything.
Rummaging through pairs of shoes in the sales, nothing felt as comfortable as my last pair. So I ended up leaving the shoes and walked back home sore-footed and questioning my decision. Was my guilt about not telling such a small and what was really quite insignificant thing to the dark haired CPF subconsciously affecting my ability to find comfortable shoes? If I did get it off my chest, would I then be able to find guilt-free comfort in the sales, or would I create unnecessary drama out of nothing? Probably.
My friend told his girlfriend, and although she was forgiving he told me that it wasn’t the same. I reassured him, telling him that that was normal and it would sort itself out eventually, and seeing him so down about it definitely stopped me confessing.
After all… Every girl is allowed a little bit of fun…
