5 Things I’ve Learned As A Cheating Man

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Ever since I was thirteen I’ve lived with this unattainable goal my father had planted in my head. Be it true or not, the thought of him sleeping with three hundred women was seared inside my mind ever since I was an adolescent. Whenever I was taken along with his musician friends — or even with his regular drinking buddies — I was subjected to more and more perverted stories, filled with mistresses, one-night stands and the women they should’ve, would’ve or could’ve had sex with. For some inexplicable reason, I proved myself to be rebellious enough to maintain a long-term relationship. And not just any long term relationship, but the serious kind that often involved drunken marriage proposals. And despite it being far from a pitch-perfect relationship, in the end it was my happily ever after. Yet somehow that also contributed to the reason my father looked at my girlfriend with a faint disdain every time she came over. As all things did, my relationship finally ended and I was back to square one. Despite being encouraged to stray many times — and even proving not to be the most faithful of boyfriends — it wasn’t my infidelity nor my father’s attitude towards early twenty-something relationships that broke things off. In the end, I wish that was it. I wish she’d seen me kissing another girl and tearfully stormed out, but that didn’t happen. So in the end I never even got my lesson out of it. Last night I tucked a very sick girl into bed who I’m seeing and then kissed her to sleep, only to get deep-throated in the back of my car by an old fling just a few hours later. The first thing to know about cheating guys is that:

1. They never learn.

Consequence is not the end point. In some men’s minds, cheating is the most prestigious way to end a relationship, and that’s not even the scary part. The incentive for “another woman” grows even more after conflict, no matter the turnaround. If you two break up, he’ll end up with his trophy, who likely doesn’t satisfy him on her own. If you two stay together and patch things up, he’ll still find another one not too long after, truly believing that he can hide her better this time. The stagnant sex life after the huge fight could have also made his sexual appetite even more insatiable. Regardless, he’ll do it again. Trust me…

2. It’s not about libido.

It rarely is. Mostly it’s about the story. I recently drove a trucker home, who was bragging all the time to me — a total stranger — about his conquests in other cities, all the while with a wedding band glimmering on his hand. It’s about how many, where and when. It’s about the tales of conquests you tell your friends, not-so-close friends or even strangers. Car pooling has made me the witness of stories of debauchery, which don’t stem from a lack of affection or sexual satisfaction with their partners. My roommate is currently fucking a co-worker, and he still suggested that we go on a double date tonight — me with a girl I’m seeing and him with his girlfriend (who isn’t the co-worker, by the way). We snickered together just thinking about it, not because we aren’t into our dates, but because the thought of fucking two girls in the same day is just that alluring.

I have a principle; Whenever I’m out with a girl, I make damn sure to her and myself that she is the only person I’m with at that moment. Everything else is a distraction. Other women don’t matter at that moment, because you’re sharing it with her and her alone. It’s like those times I’ve heard men recollect in awe over the times their wives cried after a death in the family, when only ten minutes earlier they were talking about fucking a random waitress. It’s like watching my parents fool around like teenagers at the dinner table after twenty-five years, right after I just found my dad’s secret stash of naked pictures on his laptop. Sometimes men are just most loyal to the woman they’ve spent the most time with. And I’m sad to say it, but that woman could be the other one.

3. Girlfriends and wives sometimes don’t hold a man’s attention.

We’re aware of the concept of the gumad, the Italian mistress/semi-wife. Sometimes the mistress will get all of the affection and attention that our actual girlfriend doesn’t have time for. She’s new, she’s interesting, she’s even more sexually experienced. That being said, it’s also worth noting that…

4. An affair is not a luxury, nor should it ever be treated like one.

Everyone can cheat. You don’t have to be physically appealing, have a good amount of money or even have good vocabulary to cheat. Months, even years, might go by before some woman stumbles upon another woman’s property and decides to play with her ego. And sometimes, that’s all that it is. A sense of superiority is a stupid reason to fuck someone’s boyfriend, but it’s as good a reason as any. And the unfortunate truth is that some guys are just dumb and pathetic enough to be O.K. with that, so long as it’s a secret.

5. Men will never think it was worth it to get caught.

EVER. Confessing is not going to make things better; you may have washed away a speck of dirt, but there’s still an entire heap of a mess. Trails of nails on your back are no longer a scar of honor if someone you’re sleeping with is weeping over them. The emotion behind a flattering text should be pragmatically deleted before you really hurt someone. I saw my mom raise a knife to my dad when I was five years old over infidelity. A very close friend of mine is currently apartment hopping, and has been for a year, a bad divorce. I made more girls cry this year than ever before, by just being honest. At the same time: knowing isn’t seeing. And under no circumstance should you ever show a woman the face of infidelity. As opposed to knowing, seeing the act of cheating is the equivalent of being buried alive by the person you love, without them even having the decency to sedate you. And, now that I mention it, I realize it’s one of the main reasons I’m still single.