#7: Opinion on cheating on people

I can’t help but to laugh at myself when I saw this title.

Nope, I’ve never cheated on anyone nor have I been cheated on, so far. And I’ll never cheat on anyone.

If you cheat in life, that’s schemingly smart. If you cheat death, you’re a lucky bastard. If you cheat on the other person, you’re being seen as the jerk/bitch. And if you’re the person someone cheats on with, you’re being seen worse. You’re seen as the slut/home-wrecker, someone who deserved his/her terrible ending, someone who deserved no sympathy and should be stoned to death.

We’ve all heard opinions from the cheaters and the ones being cheated on. For some fresh perspective, I figure I’ll tell you about cheating from the other ‘person’ point of view.

Hold on to your stones first.

You may argue that the ‘other person’ is a thief, and you may ask what it feels like to always be wanting to steal one from another. I ask you, do you know how it feels to always just be an afterthought? To be on the waiting end, not knowing what to expect and not being in the position to demand anything more than scraps left off your table? To know that you have every right to take him any time you want to? To not have an excuse for just simply wanting to love someone who happens to be someone else’s man? That the things I love about him are probably the same things you love about him too?

To your partner, you are a habit, comforting, steadfast, and safe. The other person is seen as an enigma, a risk, a novelty, a curious little thing, an escape. You are familiar ground, and the other person is unchartered territory. Truth be told, you’ve always had the upper hand, and the other person never really stood much of a chance.

“You always have a choice, and you chose to put yourself in this position,” you said, and I agree.

But, you can never fully understand what it feels like to be on the other end till you’re in that situation. The other person who chose to fight the battle even though deep down they know it’s a tough battle to fight. They have to fight against the society norms, their family, their friends, the partner, and themselves.

They fought hard in what they perceived to be worth fighting for, because that’s what they believe in. Or because they’re in too deep in to the relationship that by the time they realise, they cannot get themselves out of it, so they keep soldiering on at the front line without knowing how to retreat.

Fight is all they know. So they made a choice to put themselves out there and fought hard, and quiet.

There are two types of cheaters. One who just want to bang other people, and one who wants to bang other people whom they happen to like.

However, the latter type probably struggle a bit more with invested emotions compared to the former. It’s more than just sex. They know that at the end of the day, they have a choice to make between two fine options.

And they need to live by that choice they make. It might not be the most desirable choice, or it might not be the wise choice, but the cheater needs to make a tough call. The cheater has a choice to hurt someone, and most of the time if the partner never did find out, the cheater would choose to hurt the ‘other person’ and stick to their justification to feel ‘better’.

Because, realistically and logically speaking, most of the time, humans are wired towards stability and comfort instead of the unknown.

It’s nobody’s fault, really.

“In a cheater’s eye, the other woman will never be as “good” as his own woman. She might be the better one- hell, she might even be the one he loves! But, most men are lazy. We would go for comfort and stability, the “good” one.” That’s what I’ve been told several times by men across all race and age when I did my little focus group a while ago in most of the bars in Singapore.

At the end of the day, the “other person” normally ends up being the injured party; the cheater returns to the partner with a guilt/secret they need to live with; and the partner who live in a lie they will never find out.

So, here comes the question for the “other woman/man”. To spill, or not to spill?

“Without the truth, we’re nothing but animals.”- Dan, Closer.

There’s a difference between confessing to hurt another person and confessing to ease your own guilt and seek for forgiveness.

Also, there are two types of “the other woman/man”.

One is the type who will set everything on fire once they found out they didn’t get their happy endings. They confess to hurt the cheater and the partner because they think the partner deserve to know the truth and the cheater do not deserve to resume their life with no defects.

They probably never did love the cheater. Because, you don’t destroy the people you love.

The second type is the one who will lick their wounds in the dark. Knowing for a fact that they are guiltless and have no forgiveness to seek from besides themselves; and knowing that nobody deserve to be hurt intentionally.

Perhaps they are seen as the silly ones, the weak ones.

But, they are the ones who know the truth, they’re free from the secrets. They’re liberated. They’ve given their best shot at the chance of happiness.

The ones who live in it are trapped.

Would you choose to live a life knowing that you’ve seen probably the worst side of a person and accept it or would you choose to live a life thinking that you’ve seen the worst side of a person but actually, you haven’t?

Perhaps we all cheat just to see if we can be happier.