In Continuum.

"No, he's on a business trip to Japan. Cheers!"

It began with the unfortunate story of a friend's cousin, who was recently brutally cheated on and dumped by his now ex-girlfriend. It was amidst the repugnant air in the canteen when the topic arose, and it was rather fitting considering the repugnant nature of the topic itself. Cheating isn't something easy to swallow, like a really big piece of steak or a marshmallow that never seems to able to be broken down into pieces inside your mouth. You know that feeling, when you've been on the same piece of meat for a minute or two, you know that it isn't going anywhere for the next minute or two but out from your mouth. Not everybody wants to handle that in a relationship, for example, nobody really wants to know how it feels like. But then again, it is in the contract we all signed when we first got into that relationship, but it's just printed in a really small font, squashed in between two lines about love and marriage that you must have missed it because you wanted to miss it. We all know the risks, but none of us really want to see it as a very real possibility, you know, we kind of want to remain in bliss for the time being. Ignorance can be bliss at times if you want it to be, and no more true when you are talking about cheating in a relationship. Sometimes, people never want to see it as a possibility. 

I suppose that is the case for most people, don't they don't necessarily want to admit it. You can't blame them either, because they always say words like "love is blind" to make excuses, and they are valid excuses. You really only want to see things the way you want to see them, and any form of suspicion or cynicism would probably be seen as distrust or skepticism. Like, if you go into a relationship with the caution of that person cheating on you, that person is always going to see you as being a person who is being overly suspicious of people. As a result, he can't trust you enough because you can't trust him enough, but who can blame you? Once bitten, twice shy, that is the saying that says a whole lot when it comes to the victims. You don't want to take chances anymore, though you too have signed the contract of agreement to say that the two of you are together. All you can do after that is to be careful and be wary of the signs, because that is the only way that you can pull yourself out from the accident before it happens. You know, to jump ship when you realize that something is wrong at the very beginning. Be the first guy to grab the life jackets, every man for himself. Save yourself before you die a horrible death by drowning in your own misery, and all those questions you will never be able to answer. 

But today's conversation turned out to become a rather interesting debate. I found out that we all seem to have rather different take on the term "cheating", and that even that word could have various levels and meanings. Some cheating seems to be more wrong than the others, while others may seem more forgivable if one's heart is big enough to do so. The ladies were more righteous though, they defended their standpoint with much justice and stubbornness. That's why they always wonder why men have different values when it comes to relationships, why we tend to give "theories" like the "different levels of cheating". It is as if we give ourselves excuses to cheat, just because one form of cheating is less wrong than the other. The truth is, I believe, cheating is wrong - but some wrongs can be forgiven while others cannot. It's not about whether or not we allow such things to happen, or that we see it as being "OK". It isn't OK, but it is something normal, and I suppose we have rationalized things out to be this way. Some cheating is just more justifiable than the others, just like how some murders seem to be a lot more justified. Think about some guy murdering another because that other person raped his daughter, or something like that. It's murder, but is it really the kind that should be punishable by death? 

Under law, perhaps that may be the case. But this is cheating in relationships we are talking about now, and there isn't any form of law written into any books in regards to that. There isn't and shouldn't be a black and white distinction when it comes to cheating, because you just don't do that with human emotions. Like I mentioned in the previous entry about the seven deadly sins, wrath should never be considered a sin, because it is merely a human emotion that we all have embedded in our system. It is always what you do with that wrath that could result in a sin, and therein lies the great difference. Similarly, there are types of cheating whereby it is dealing with human emotions, because not all cheating is done with a malicious purpose of cheating on somebody else. Like, the worst kind of cheating would probably be the kind of cheating, whereby a person goes out purposefully to find somebody else just to cheat on his or her current partner. That'd be the worst kind of cheating, because that form of cheating was done under a malicious intent. But when we are talking about emotions, when emotions are involved, it becomes a completely different story. And there are so many circumstances whereby the swaying of emotions could be considered cheating. So when can we draw the line, or can a line be drawn at all? 

You know, some women actually consider the act of surfing pornography by their husbands to be cheating. Well, you can vaguely see why they would want to make a big fuss out of their husbands jerking off to a bunch of naked women in a computer monitor - those women have bigger breasts, thicker makeups, and they are not you. You see where they are arguing from, you kind see where they are coming from. Yet, if you pull away and look at things from a broader perspective, it just seems a little absurd now, doesn't it. Of course, I understand what the women must be feeling about themselves when they catch their husbands doing that. It is as if the men cannot be satisfied by their wives, and as a result have turned to internet pornography to satisfy their hunger for sex. They'd feel inadequate, unimportant, or just useless when it happens. But to label that as being "cheating", that just seems like a big word to put on your husband, don't you think. After all, you are treating all those women in a small computer monitor as your enemies, and that you are actually threatened by them? The thing is, there is more to jerking off to a computer screen to cheating, you don't just lump everything together and say that it is punishable by the worst form of punishment there is for cheating. Some forms of cheating deserves that certainly, but do they all?

I can sympathize with the friend's cousin, you know, I more or less know how it feels like to have someone cheat on you behind your back. No matter the type of cheating, the end result is always going to end up with you being broken and hurt, no doubts about that. It is always what happens afterwards that makes it different from case to case, and it isn't different this time around either. His case seems to be that of the ex-girlfriend purposefully wanting to cheat on him for reasons unknown. I won't go into details, but let's just say she wasn't exactly honest about the reason behind the break up, and that she definitely had a thing or two to do with another guy while she was still with this cousin of a friend. It's easier, in a way, in his cause, though I don't want to belittle his pain in any way. I mean, it must feel horrible to be him right now, betrayed and unwanted by a person you've invested quite a bit of time on. Still, it's easier in his case, because you have a reason to be angry about, you have a perfectly good excuse to throw a temper, to sink into depression, and it is much easier to find the answer to the question of - why? 

It wasn't so easy in my case, though, it wasn't really as clear cut. Yes, I was deeply hurt back then, and yes I sank into a period of depression and anger afterwards. These "processes" are all the same as long as you have been cheated on. It is impossible to walk away unscathed, so we all try to manage the hurt the best way we know. But the questions that I had afterwards were a lot more difficult to answer, because one question ultimately led to even more questions, and it was a vicious cycle that went on and on until I came back to square one - myself. I started blaming myself for pretty much everything that happened, no matter how much my friend tried to convince me that I was the victim, that she was the one to be blamed, to be hated upon. It was a one-time thing for her, or maybe it happened a couple of times, I don't know (or don't want to know). The one thing I know now, in retrospect, seems to be the fact that she did not do what she did out of malicious intent at all. It's not like she cheated on me because she wanted me to be in this emotion horrorland. She was overwhelmed by her emotions, and she must have rationalized it in the best way she knew how at that point in time. So she slept with someone else while I was away, presumably for that one time, and that was the end of that. 

It's different, you know, though they are all cases of someone being cheated upon by another. You can't just say that they are all unforgivable acts, and they should be condemned forever and ever, until they die an old man or old woman without a partner or a sexual organ. Perhaps just for the ex-girlfriend of my friend's cousin, but certainly not for the girl whom I was involved with. It wasn't a cruel intention, and it wasn't out of the intention of hurting me. She made a choice, a choice that may have been wrong, but she made a choice under a specific circumstance. That choice, ultimately, destroyed me - but I forgave her. I forgave her because it was the right thing to do, and because I didn't know better. I should have ended the relationship there, told her that it was the end for the both of us. It would have saved the troubles and the tears that followed swiftly after, but thus are the choices that we've all made. You can't seem to find a way to fault someone like that at times, you just can't. I should have accepted what has happened and moved on, and not harp on the same thing for such a long time. That was my fault, it really was, and there's no questions about that. 

I suppose the point I am trying to make is that there are circumstances when you cannot simply put something to one side of the fence as oppose to another. Yes, being cheated on hurts like hell, and yes you should never try to continue a relationship after all is said and done. Yet, there are some form of "cheating" that should be forgiven, because we are all humans in this life, we make decisions and we make very wrong decisions. Having your heart being broken after being cheated on is just part and parcel of everything, because it is a very real possibility. People change and heart falters, you cannot expect something or someone to last forever. Sometimes they do, and we should be glad about that. But more often than not, things usually end messily, and you find yourself asking more questions while trying to seek closure. The truth is, forget about closure and just move on with everything. Forgive, if she can be forgiven, and move on with the rest of your life. Because from what I have experienced, it isn't worth it to ask the same questions over and over, because it will eventually come back to you and shoot you in the back. It's not worth the time, and it's not worth the hurt. Forgiveness is perhaps the best medicine and cure you could ever give to yourself. Not just forgiveness for that person in question, but yourself most of all. Forgive, because we are humans - and we falter easily.