Moral Dilemmas II: where I answer my own rhetorical questions, or start to

Him: What do you think about dating more than one person at a time?

Me: I think it's fine, so long as everyone is being honest and knows what is going on.

Thinking: And even then...

When do you owe someone that honesty?

While before the first date is too much too soon, and after marriage is too little too late, there is a wide grey area in between where potential misunderstandings, hurt feelings and awkward conversations abound. This is probably why most people either a) avoid dating more than one person at a time or b) avoid having the conversations, thereby cheating by default.

But: is it the expectations that lie at the root of those misunderstandings and hurt feelings--that is, that people date one person at a time, and therefore only exceptions to this rule require communication--or the lack of honesty? If we expected people to be dating more than one person until hearing otherwise directly from them, how would that change?

~~~~~

Last week I read a column in the Globe and Mail titled The Other Woman, all about those poor sad dupes who believe the married guy loves them because he buys them lingerie.

Before I get to the part where I choked, I'd like to point out that any woman in any relationship who believes that a guy loves her because he buys her stuff, regardless of their official relationship status, is a poor sad dupe. This is not an affliction that holds only for The Other Woman. All of us are in the position of attempting to judge someone else's intentions and honesty based on a combination of gifts, actions, words, looks, consistency, and so on; none of us will ever fully penetrate or understand the heart of another.

Here are the choking hazards:

It's true there are women who profess not to care if their man leaves his wife.

...aha, but they are miserable, self-deluded wretches, engaged in a pathetic pretense. Deep down all women want the diamond ring and the white-picket fence. We have chosen to disregard what the women have to say about themselves, and will shortly share with you instead the musings of a group of self-proclaimed 'experts' who have not a shred of evidence among them.

But I would suggest that's an unhealthy display of defensiveness and self-degradation, and it points to the problem that many psychologists say underlies the reason single women settle for a part-time man. It's that old bugaboo: low self-esteem.

...because there's no such thing as a psychologically healthy woman who doesn't want to be married or partnered, would rather have several casual relationships over one serious one, enjoys being single or has tried marriage and didn't like it. Since we can't find a mental illness common to all women sleeping with married men which can be treated pharmaceutically (pity, it's so much more profitable), we'll just shame them all into silence or compliance by telling them it's their low self-esteem.

Here's one way to see things clearly. Think of yourself as a Ferrari in a garage that you are offering to him to use any time he wants. You fill it up with gas. You keep it clean, finely detailed for his pleasure.

...because clear thinking in relationships always involves objectifying yourself and seeing yourself primarily as a man's ticket to orgasm. This, by the way, also defines high self-esteem (see above).

The best advice, however, is the pre-emptive kind. Channel Barbara Amiel: When she was between husband No. 3 (David Graham) and husband No. 4 (Conrad Black), she was in London, moving among the great and the good. There were plenty of men, but she knew what she wanted and what she deserved.

...because Conrad Black may be a felon, but he's a rich felon and he was all hers. Good thinking, Barbara!

Ready for more? Let's read a few comments.

On second thought, I'll let you read the comments. Except for this one: "Here's one thing I know to be true: Cheaters cheat. It's what they do."

Too true. Scientifically proven. DNA studies have in fact found that these types are a separate sub-species, the Homo Sapiens Infidelus.

I have been both the jezebel and the frigid bitch. I was the same person both times. Wasn't I?

My self-esteem was not sky-high the one time and rock-bottom the other. Being the jezebel, if anything, reduced my sense of myself because what the hell was I doing? Why was I doing this? A scenario that strikes me as more likely (if you believe women are people) than a wilting wallflower waiting for a married man to make her feel complete. My ethics and morals were not substantially different. I was the same person--not, in either case, wholly innocent; not, in either case, wholly to blame; in both cases the same mix of insecurities and strengths, blind spots and clear thinking, wishes and fears, smarts and stupids that I am on most other days. I was me.

Anyone can become at any time the person they are sure they will never be, doing the thing they are sure they will never do. What sort of hubris allows one to think they are exempt from human failings? At the very least any woman who's ever been through the first year of motherhood, when all of our precious notions of what sort of mothers we can be and will be crumble into a haze of sleep-deprivation and expert-laden guilt, ought to know better. She ought to know that all of us are capable of failing those we love most on earth simply because we are sometimes not the people we thought we were or wanted to be.

Most of the science I've read on the issue of infidelity concludes that both men and women are not lifelong monogamous pair-bonders, but opportunistic adulterers. That is, we will remain faithful so long as we are convinced that this is our best deal (in a modern society, factoring in the cost of divorce, the impact on children, and so on); but once we are presented with something we think is a better deal, we'll take what we can get, for as long as we can get away with it.

It's not a flattering portrait of human nature; but then, science can also explain most of our altruistic and nurturing behaviours including within our immediate families through mathematical formulas based on ratios of genetic relatedness. It feels noble, spiritual, pure, high-minded, and it's not.

From the gutters of humanity's primate nature (ask any female chimp how many males she fucked per offspring and, if she were human, she'd give you a wicked little laugh) to the heights of romantic idealism in the next installment, since this one is getting long enough, don't you think?

Posted by Andrea at February 19, 2008 9:03 AM under Female Trouble , Friends and Others , Me , Mothers and Anti-Mothers

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