Mind Of Man: Why Men Cheat (The Abbreviated Version)
Posted by: John DeVore
Filed in:
guys
9:00AM, Wednesday October 15th 2008
So long as love rides shotgun in your life, nothing can ever truly be that bad. It is the singular prize that trumps all others, the reward that sweetens every success. Truly, it is the hot fudge on the ice cream scoops of personal achievement. Now, excuse me while I puke a little in my mouth. Actually, I’m going to shotgun a cheap beer and play some Grand Theft Auto 4 to make amends for such an unforgivably cheeseball observation. More on love and rewards and, ZOMG, trust, after the jump…. Plus, a fable!
Another reason men run around behind the backs of their doting, self-sacrificing, noble girlfriends and wives—you don’t adore us enough. When Spartan warriors returned home from victorious campaigns, do you think their women greeted them with eye-rolls and shrugs? Nay, she-dudes! They were venerated supremely, celebrated for days upon days!
So, let’s talk infidelity.
Many ladies want to know why it is men cheat. And here’s what you want to hear, straight from the talk-hole of the testosterone enabled: men cheat because we are faithless, miserable dogs. We are backstabbing, silver tongued two-faces who stalk any smooth pair of getaway sticks in a short black cocktail dress that happens to saunter into our lusty field of vision. Men are horny wolves in fluffy sheep’s clothing who delight in looking into your eyes and lying. Breaking hearts is our middle name. Why, at any given moment, while you’re gabbing to your girlfriends about flowers purchased, omelette’s made, sweet words whispered, we’re picturing the nearest woman under the age of 25 in a sheer bikini, riding a mechanical bull.
We are just hopelessly addicted to that “new car smell.” We love to make you miserable in our pursuit of total hotness, your fickle happiness be damned. By the way, my name is John. Have you ever read “Atlas Shrugged?”
And that’s just part of it. If you want to blame someone for our cheating ways, blame evolution! We are hardwired to hunt, and to share our wicked cool genetic code with a world that demands that we do! The universe conspires to compel us to pursue that which retreats. See, we cheat because we’re cavemen, and our half-gorilla brains demand we spread as much of our seed over as much fertile ground as possible to make sure that our little caveboys have the chance to grow up and do likewise. And we do this quickly, mind you, because you never know when a woolly mammoth will shish-kabob us on one of their mighty tusks. It’s not our fault. It’s biology, genetics, science for the love of Zeus.
How can you question science? Without it, the curling iron would never have been invented!
Here’s another reason men run around behind the backs of their doting, self-sacrificing, noble girlfriends and wives—you don’t adore us enough. When Spartan warriors returned home from victorious campaigns, do you think their women greeted them with eye-rolls and shrugs? Nay, she-dudes! They were venerated supremely, celebrated for days upon days! Love was made to them, olives were pitted and fed to them, their wives could not get enough of their dangerous tales of adventure and carnage! Tales told over and over and over again. And, at the end of each of these nights, as the mighty victors, now satiated and spent, drifted off to sleep, their ladyfolk would purr into their ears, “OMG, YOU ARE TOTES AWESOME.”
If you don’t pat us on the back and tell us we’re special, we will find someone who will. And, like Christie Brinkley’s pervy ex-husband, that person who will pat us on the back and tell us we’re special will be nineteen years old.
How could I forget this other important reason why men cheat—we’re addicted to sex! It’s not our fault we drool for hours over porn while you sleep. It’s a diagnosable affliction, and while many of us probably don’t really need to see a shrink to legitimately diagnose it, or to even go to rehab, you have to understand that it’s beyond our control. We can’t help ourselves. Pity the booty junkie. And don’t take our word for it – actual relationship experts on television confirm that some, if not most, men are hooked on sleeping with as many women as they can. This in no way enables us to justify bad behavior and to escape responsibility for our actions. This is just a true fact, that men can become addicted to getting whatever it is they want without consequence.
Surely, as the more emotionally developed and sensitive gender, you can’t negatively judge someone wrestling with such a malady. That would be cruel.
Get the point?
The truth is that men cheat for the same reason women cheat. And cheat you do. There isn’t a word for a women whose husband cheats on her. But the English language gives us a word for a man whose wife runs around on him. That word is “cuckold,” and there are few names as limp and pitiful sounding as “cuckold.” Maybe “smoosh.” Women can be faithless, and for centuries, they’ve done their fair share of tasting forbidden fruit. Literature is full of the sorrow women have caused: Menelaus laid siege to Troy because Helen ran away with another man. Othello smothered his beloved because he believed her to have cheated on him. Hell, frat boy rom-com “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” was all based around that hot chick from “Veronica Mars” cheating on that funny fat dude.
Plenty of blame to go around; it would be unfair to savage one gender so the other can enjoy the dismal pleasures of pointless victimization. But there is a reason people, men and women, cheat.
And here’s the fable part.
A dog was carrying a bone over a bridge. Looking down at the water under the bridge, the dog saw his reflection, which looked to the dog to be a bigger dog, carrying a bigger bone. Wanting the bigger bone he saw in the water, the dog barked and dropped his bone into the river. Stupid dog loses his bone.
We cheat because we’re tempted to risk what we have for the promise of something that isn’t, probably never was, and definitely won’t last.
So… everyone is capable of cheating. We are our very own villain and that is a true fact. Makes us human, I suppose. The choice.
Ah well. Sucks. But it’s a risk we all have to take, trusting the other person even though they could cheat. But without risk, there is no reward.
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N
wrote on October 15 2008 @ 07:04 pm: [report]
Seriously? Well, maybe not; but if you’re going to be funny, try to actually *be* funny.
There is very little in this opinion-piece that has not been said before, and less still that succeeds in being funny on this third or fourth or fortieth retelling.
So maybe I should ask if it contains anything that might be useful if you think your partner is cheating? Or might be downright essential even if he isn’t?
Well, there’s some. The crack about the Women of Sparta needed to be wrapped up in a humorous cloak, as few women (and fewer men) are going to relish such an unpleasant truth: monogamous pairing between human males and females works against some very strong biological drives, and maintaining the pair-bond requires unending effort.
So… What did *you* do or say this week to make your partner think how wonderful - no, how amazing - it is be with you?
What, nothing? He is already looking over there, at the nineteen year-old in a miniskirt that fits her perfectly and delights her with the daily affirmation of being sexy and a joy to those who see her and - just a little bit - a power over men. You haven’t given your man a reason not to look - not a reason stronger than the drive in him (and you!) to seek a better mate - and if you say you did and it was more than a week ago, it’s no longer good enough.
And if she’s willing, he will. Your status as exclusive partner rests on the size of that ‘IF’; and, sooner or later, some other girl will signal back that she is willing. And if you think that nobody attractive could possibly be attracted to your partner, what does that make you?
Fortunately, being the bird in his hand is worth a great deal more than the promise that some other woman might have something for him in the bushes… If, and only if, you use the ‘home advantage’ to constantly and creatively find ways of reaffirming that you and he and both of you together are amazing.
Yes, you could fail: if it’s not for lack of trying, face the fact that he wasn’t worth keeping and don’t (or try not to) allow the failure to be a reflection on you. Some men really are like that.
But consider the other side of the harsh truth about human nature and the effort you have to put in to the relationship: it can and will be a whole lot of fun to do.
If it stops being fun, or you just plain don’t want to bother, why not start looking ‘astray’ yourself? *You* are someone’s nineteen-year-old-in-a-miniskirt - yes, really, somewhere - and you may as well set her loose and get some fun out of whatever it is that made you attractive - and made you *want* to be attractive to him - however long ago it was when it was fun to be with the man you live with now. Don’t think of it as being ‘unfaithful’ - think of it as rekindling a part of you that you’d lost faith in.
And work at that, too - the thinking, I mean - because he’ll be just as creative in finding justifications for *his* unfaithfulness.
That’s all of it: feel free to disagree if you think otherwise. But do, please, only answer if your ‘otherwise’ came out of *thinking* - there is no point in reflexive disagreement and an ill-thought-out protest against something that ‘ought’ not to be true, but turns out to be true without regard to how bitterly we wish it isn’t so.
Vagabond
wrote on October 18 2008 @ 01:36 am: [report]
Blah,blah,blah. Less talking, more cooking.
John
wrote on November 9 2008 @ 10:38 pm: [report]
Put two people in a shallow, empty relationship that began only because they thought each other was “hot” and they’ll both get around to cheating sooner or later.
But if you both have picked the right person for the right reason and make a new commitment to them every day, neither of you will ever want to cheat.
jasmineontheweb
wrote on December 29 2008 @ 12:23 am: [report]
“...olives were pitted” and “our half-gorilla brains demand we spread as much of our seed over as much fertile ground as possible” while “we love to make you miserable in our pursuit of total hotness…”
Nice sarcasm about something so unfunny. You know, guys will never understand what it feels like to be used. It’s sort of sad how morals get taken out of life. Like it’s no longer important to actually treat someone with respect. And I know you like to generalize guys and then at the very end of each article you sum up the moral of the story as if guys really don’t want threesomes and that they really trully do like A-cup women, and that men are actually wrong for cheating. But the the truth is, I’ve had guys turn heads behind their wives backs since I was 14 years old. As I was delivering a product to some man’s car one night outside the #&@$% shopping mall I worked at, he hit on me. He was a doctor and his wife was waiting not 50 yards from him. If that doesn’t make you loose hope, then I don’t know what does.
If anyone wants to test my, how does John put it, “nerdy feminist” ways you go right ahead and email me at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
whatevers
wrote on May 2 2009 @ 06:13 pm: [report]
I get the sarcasm. But I have a different view on cheating too. During one of “those talks” my dad sat me down and said that there’s someone out there for everyone, and you may not find them right off the bat, but have respect for the person when you know they’re not “the one”. Cheaters have no respect. Granted I was probably 14 when he was telling me this but two years later in a kind of typical “high school” relationship I found out my gf was cheating on me. In hindsight, I’m glad that all happened even though it tore me up for awhile, because it reinforced the fact that cheaters have no respect for the person they were supposedly in a relationship with. So I guess I’m not a sex-addicted-gorilla-Spartan. I’m glad.