Joseph DeMartino
Senior HTF Member
IMHO, most of friendship is proximity and time.That's 90% of any relationship, including sexual ones. In fact, most affairs are the result of proximity and time. Which is why people who are in what are supposed to be committed relationships don't invest proximity and time in other people of the opposite sex. At least those with an ounce of common sense don't. It isn't a matter of whether you and your SO trust one another - it is a matter of whether or not you can trust yourself 100% of the time in all situations, under all circumstances. Like even when you and your SO are going through a relationship "trough" and the "friend" that you're working late with has just broken up with her boyfriend is looking exceptionally hot tonight, and you just stop for a beer...
I don't trust myself that much. And I've never cheated in a relationship in my life. But I know I'm no saint, and I know I'm as susceptible to temptation as the next guy. So I avoid it. It is amazing how easy it is to stay faithful if you stay of out places and situations where it is easy not to. And since I don't expect the women I date to be any more superhuman that I am, I have to allow for the possibility that they'll bet tempted to. So I would expect them (if they're honest with themselves and with me) to avoid tempation as well. This is no more obeying an "aribitrary rule" than wearing a seatbelt in a car is. Some people complain about what a limitation that is on their freedom, too, and refuse to be encumbered - at least until the first time they're in a wreck and learn better.
The vast majority of people who end up cheating don't go out and deliberately cheat. "It just happens" (Well, that's the lie they tell themselves) But they're partly right. They don't make a cold-blooded decision to go off and have sex with a friend or stranger (although some do, of course.) They fall into situations. But they forget that before they could fall, they had to climb the ladder.
BTW, this has all been about the general area of "relationships". Does anyone think the rules are/ought-to-be different in the case of marriage?
Regards,
Joe