High infidelity

As a former president might have said, it all depends on what your definition of ‘cheating’ is

by Charyn Pfeuffer

Guilty as charged. I’ve cheated on significant others in the past. But I pinky swear that no hearts have been broken in the process. (As far as I know.) Depending on the surrounding circumstances, I’ve been able to rationalize everything from a solitary tongueless kiss to horizontal romps involving everything but insertion. Yes, I’m a grown woman. I know the difference between right and wrong. But there are times when a revved-up libido, a few glasses of wine, and a fuzzy commitment scream trouble — and I mean trouble of the possibly naked and definitely groping variety.

For me, the trouble always starts when the state of my current relationship is not clearly defined, and actions tolerable to one party are considered heinous by the other. I’m not implying that I can’t be on my best behavior without a serious commitment, but I’ve been known to get distracted. I’m not bragging about something so atrocious — I’ve been on the demoralizing butt end of cheating, after all. But I don’t cheat when I’m in a monogamous relationship. At least not by my definition of cheating.

And there’s the rub, so to speak. The definition of cheating seems to vary greatly from person to person, from cheater to cheatee. I know this because cheating is a topic that arises frequently — perhaps too frequently — within my circle of friends. Most have felt its effects, and everyone has a strong opinion.

For some, cheating is a nondebatable, black-and-white issue; for others, the rules tend to bend on a case-by-case basis. According to my friend Vanessa, “Anything that you wouldn’t do in front of your boyfriend or spouse is cheating — except for mild flirting, which is human nature. End of story.” A male friend of mine says, “Cheating is cheating if it makes you feel guilty.” Meanwhile, another pal, who is deep in the throes of a potentially scandalous romance with a married man, says, “The way I look at it, I’m not married to anyone, so I’m not cheating. He is. But when I cheat on him — the cheater — I feel guilty, though I should be in a position not to feel to guilty. But I still feel as though I am cheating on a monogamous relationship.”

I truly believe there are two types of people in this world, people who cheat and people who don’t. Once you’re a cheater, it’s hard to reform, and once you’ve done it, it’s easier to do it again. That said, I know very few people who haven’t crossed the line of infidelity at least once — and they are all too willing to share the intimate details of their indiscretions. Apparently, alleviating one’s guilty conscience is a post-cheating must.

Discussions with selected friends of my own unfaithful behavior are both self-affirming and self-rationalizing. It’s like the fulfillment I get when I shop at high-priced department stores: It doesn’t matter what I’m wearing in front of that unflattering, full-length mirror. The salesperson purrs that it looks fabulous. How could I possibly feel one ounce of remorse when my AmEx card is swiped by the same person who gave my fragile ego such a positive stroke?

The same mentality applies to choosing which friends will be privy to my cheating confessions. As the cheater, I certainly don’t want to be chastised for an activity that I know deep down is questionable. The process of elimination is crucial when choosing confidantes. If you can rally at least one approving person to your side, you can wipe the slate clean and move forward — on to the next entanglement.

Ido get the sense, however, that post-cheating dialogue is a little different among men. My friend Jason once bragged, “I had a great relationship with a woman who was seriously seeing someone when we became intimate, which eventually led her to break it off with him after two months of deception. He was in a different country at the time — and I had a sick sense of fun as we read together his love letters to her.” Hmmm. Another guy said that he would cheat because he didn’t want to be left in the dust. He did it because he thought his woman would definitely cheat on him, so he wanted to be the first one to do it — to say “Hah! I did that a long time ago.” Most women I know who’ve cheated don’t deliver their recap and analysis quite so smugly. But for men like Jason, scoring with spoken-for goods makes it all the more juicy.

Still, there are places in the cheating rule book where gender stereotypes break down. I was horrified to learn that my “kitten squad” of friends — all seemingly conservative, pretty “good girls” with great bodies (you know the type) — had very specific and, uh, rather narrow views of what constitutes cheating. Generally, their idea of cheating is restricted to “having sex,” and by that they mean good old-fashioned intercourse. This means that making out, touching, and even oral sex (with both parties giving and receiving) is “not cheating.”

A male friend, Judd — a true gentleman and a fine catch — takes a no-nonsense, non-parsing-of-terms approach: “In my mind, cheating comes from thoughts. Guys look at girls and vice versa, which is fine, but when you start envisioning yourself with that person in a real scenario, then you are in trouble. Those simple thoughts are where the zygote of cheating comes from.”

One single cheating situation I know of yielded positive results, and I would be doing a disservice to my fellow cheaters, both current and reformed, if I didn’t divulge it. As my friend Lynn tells the story: “Take one controlling marriage, add a few dirty martinis, salsa dancing, and a sexy Cuban guy, and . . . bingo! I realized I didn’t have to be in an unhappy marriage. Now, two years later, my Latin lover and I have a gorgeous daughter and we are completely in love.”

A fine romance indeed — for now.

Charyn Pfeuffer doesn’t believe in email, unless a date is involved.