To cheat or not to cheat...

I have always been a big cheater. It has to do with poor self esteem. I would set the bar low and go out with anyone who wasn't completely repulsive that liked me, all the while looking for the mythical "next best thing." I would, then, find someone else who liked me and ditch person A for the marginally better person B. The cycle would continue. I would slowly inch up the rungs of the ladder of acceptable males. A loser for someone less of a loser to a geek to a nerd to a misogynist to hot guy with severe emotional problems to someone so shy that they could not barely function but with a heart of gold and so on... I have done it gently and openly. I have lied and snuck around.

I'm not condoning my actions in any way. I don't like myself and never have. I have never felt attractive except for in fleeting moments through the perception of these poor guys. The more I am wanted, the more it is like an incredibly addictive drug. I've made out with so many people I barely liked just to feel attractive. A bad way to go about getting confidence, I know. It is a transient form of happiness and I am essentially using people as pawns. It is nasty behavior and whatever goes around comes around.

I am not here to talk about my shoddy behavior. I want to analyze the motivations of cheating. Are most people like me, looking to feel better about themselves? Are people love addicts? Do people have impulse control issues? Are cheaters bored with their significant other or looking for something they can't get at home? All are true and there are many more reasons that I am not mentioning.

People cheat and who do the cheated on blame? The other party, rather than their significant other. Why? Often, the other party is a stranger, someone who doesn't know or care about you. You are out of sight and, thus, out of their mind. They are doing what people do: meet someone and hook up with them, sometimes repeatedly. But there is an element of loose morals that goes along with that unless your significant other lied to them. They go along and do the morally wrong thing. They greedily take what they want and that is that. Is that villainy? No. It is inconsiderate to no end and selfish but a far cry from mass murder or pushing an old lady with a walker into traffic. It is the betrayal that your significant other committed that is what is wrong.

The reality is that it is harder to hate someone you love than someone you don't even know. It is easier to project all that hurt and anger onto a blank canvas than someone who has meant so much to you over the years. Out of sight out of mind.

But it doesn't work. Feelings have a way of catching up with you no matter how much you try to displace or bury them.