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Risking So Much For So Little
I was reading an interesting article yesterday morning at Evan Marc Katz’s blog about why men cheat. In it Evan quotes an article in Psychology Today which he described as “a smart and concise description of why men risk so much for so little…”
That line really struck me. Not only do we risk so much for so little when we cheat, some of us do it even if we’re not married or not seeing someone. Casual sex has really become a socially accepted phenomenon. People everywhere are hooking up and many of them are hooking up often. And maybe, in itself, it really is all about sexual choice and freedom. I mean, after all, if you’re single, who are you hurting anyway? Two consenting adults, both unattached, should be able to do who or whatever they want to do, right?
But does it really hurt no one? Sometimes unaware you may find that you’ve managed to hook up with someone who you thought was single until suddenly you find out he wasn’t. You thought you were following the rules, yet somehow, without even knowing it, you’ve become the other woman. Not a pleasant situation to find yourself in, is it? It’s hard to know, unless of course you’re hooking up with someone you know pretty well, what the real story behind the person is.
You may trust that all is as it seems to be because that person is a friend of a friend or you have some other connection to him, but the truth is it’s easy to leave things out when the possibility of getting laid is right there in front of you. Maybe you’ll get some fool who has buyer’s remorse and later gives you an “Oh by the way…” but then again, maybe you won’t. Perhaps next time you’re out and about you’ll run into the fool and his girl and, though you may get the satisfaction of his embarassment and stammers, you’re still the girl who did some other girl’s man. Yuck.
Or, worse yet, maybe the moment gets the best of you and condoms don’t manage to come into the equation. Next thing you know, you find yourself pregnant or with an unexpected STD. The problem is, though most of us said goodbye to our teenage years long ago, we still somehow go through life with an “it won’t happen to me” attitude. Seriously. How many of us have had an “opps” moment and gotten through it unscathed? Many of us I’m sure. And the more times it happens, the more times we’re safe, the more we think we’re immune. Until one day you wake up and BAM! you’re not safe anymore.
It really can happen to anyone at any given moment regardless of what we think. None of us have an anti-pregnacy or anti-STD superpower. You may have dodged the bullet for years, but that’s no guarantee you’ll dodge it the next time. One day someone’s bound to have a good aim.
Even if you do remember the condom, there’s no safety guarantee either. They break, they end up with holes in them, or The Universe decides to play a cosmic joke on your ass. There’s a reason they’re not stamped with 100% guarantee symbol. So the next time you’re thinking one night can’t really hurt anything, maybe you should ask yourself, “Is it really worth risking so much for so little?”
Thoughts?
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Honey August 21st, 2009, 11:14 am
The BF cheated on his girlfriend with 2 women before breaking up with her, and he didn’t use condoms either time (and one of the other women was someone he met and went on dates with while living in Vegas on a summer internship! her name was Crystal! Please!).
He broke up with his girlfriend almost a year after he started cheating on her, and he never told her that he did cheat on her. When I found out about this, I was obviously appalled. He could have given himself, and his girlfriend, a disease, he could have gotten some other girl pregnant…
He calls me “the turnaround girl” because I was so wonderful (according to him) that he knew he had to change his ways…but yes, we all make mistakes. I’ve cheated, too, but I always broke up with the guy before sleeping with him again (not that using cheating as the impetus to break up with someone that you knew you should’ve broken up with months ago is noble, either).