Cheating

I started to write a post on Cheating and had written about 250 words when something in mind went poof.. a blast from the past hit me... and then i gave up that post... spent the large part of the day thinking, walking, pondering again walking in the late evening...

As I walked on the street lined with a few Ashoka(also called Mast trees) trees, the moon in the distance and the soft cool breeze .. the buildings on the other side of the street starting to get decorated for the festive season and the sweet almost intoxicating smell of the Ashoka flowers which start to blossom just now in Delhi and stay that way till the onset of winter. They almost drive me mad.. the smell is so refreshing and intoxicating that one can almost achieve nirvana under that tree and I almost did... the smell is like having a 100 orgasms together and yet so refreshing that you feel like you had none and yet yearn for more... Anyway that made my mind a bit lighter and am back rewriting the entire post all over again with what i feel rather than what the world would make me feel about cheating.. 

What is Cheating? Def: Cheating is an act of lying, deception, fraud, trickery, imposture, or imposition. Cheating characteristically is employed to create an unfair advantage, usually in one's own interest, and often at the expense of others,Cheating implies the breaking of rules (ref: Wikipedia).

But  then who sets the rules? Did god set the rules or we did? or the society did? What rules  did they set and why? Lets try and answer these questions and in the process raise a few for ourselves and other to answer.

Lets first define cheating for ourselves.Here we shall limit ourselves to Cheating in relationships and not any other form of financial cheating, exam cheating etc. I believe cheating is any act when someone's trust is broken. Trust which that person has put in you. The faith that you shall be with that person through thick and thin. To be one not only emotionally but also financially and sexually.  When do we learn to cheat? We first learn how to cheat when we are in school. And surprisingly its our parents who teach us how to do so. Confused? yes our parents did it to us and now we are doing it to our children. Remember who did your holiday homework for you including those stupid charts and projects and models? See now you say aah! but that's not cheating. It is my friend it is. We chat to get good grades in our holiday homework... soon enough we are cheating in our exams, sports.. the list just starts from there.As we grow older we start cheating professionally. we cheat our way through income tax, traffic rules you name it and we do it. But today we will just discuss cheating in terms of relationships.. and not just any relationships but relationships between man and woman, husband and wife, lovers whatever you wanna call it.

By the time we are mature enough to get married or be in a relationship (lets assume it is commited as other kinds of relationships are beyond the scope of this post) we are already lying, abusing our way through everything and the habit of cheating is already well entrenched in our systems. Most people cheat when they enter a relationship. How? Well they hide all previous history of other relationships, affairs and deny any form of sexual activity there by breaking the trust even before it has been well formed. Soon enough people start getting attracted to other people emotionally, sexually or  financially. Why? Because either or both of them don't trust each other and/or compulsive cheaters. The can also grow apart once the initial razmatazz wears of a new relationship and the daily grind hits us. But then why don't we just divorce or break up and move on to a new relationship? Why cheat? Answer is simple - I wanna have my cake and eat it too. Humans by nature are polygamous. Hence are geans are always pushing us to mate with more than one person in order to have the best gene pool in our offsprings... but somehow down the ages our society decided that we should remain commited to one person barring in some religions or societies where a man can have more than one wife but then even there why not the other way round? why cant the woman have more than one husband? Draupadi had 5 of them if you believe in legend.

The whole concept of cheating would disappear if we were allowed to have more than one partner. Don't you think so? I know of so many couples who live under one roof but see someone else. Is that cheating? No. Since the trust is long gone and the marriage is for mere convenience for them and the kids and the society and nothing more. Is swapping of partner or threesome cheating? Again no. And for once i think It may not be a completely bad idea in the modern times.  If as polygamous humans we are attracted to other people then can that one night not only satisfy our hormones but also keep the relationship intact. I may be wrong here and you may not agree with me. Well sometimes even i don't agree with myself. Let me just give you an example. Tom if my partner thinks that she is bored and wants to try and have sex with someone else.. i would probably be livid. but if she comes and tells me that she got drunk and had sex with some one say at an office offsite I may be angry with her but will be more than ready to accept it as a one off incident as long as it remains that. Though i may force her to change jobs. Same way if i were to ever feel sexually attracted to someone i will never be able to leave my partner and have sex with some one else unless my partner is also part of the act. Why? Well for once it will not only give me the confidence that I'm not lying or hiding anything but also my partner will probably have the trust in me and may also spice things up between us.

No I'm not justifying sex here in different formats but only giving an example of what might be ok in given circumstances. Sexual attraction is one of the biggest reasons for cheating.

Having said that there is also something called emotional cheating which I believe is a bigger sin than sexual cheating. Why? Cause you can sleep with someone and still go back to your normal life but once the emotional cord is broken it can never ever be mended back again.Why do people do that? simple as i said have your cake and eat it too. Most people don't want to break their current relationships for fear of society, sake of kids or family pressure but they are emotionally miles apart from their partners and hence the reason to cheat or depend upon someone else for emotional needs. These days we spend mos of our time at work and very few waking hours at home and even fewer with our partners and this is where the emotional gap and needs begin to rise and soon we find succor in someone else and most often that is at work. In olden days cheating used to be much less. why? simple husband comes home.. wife is a housewife she has already done everything and ready to spend time with her husband. No i'm not saying women should stay at home but just pointing out one benefit of doing so. I think once two people have realized that they are growing apart then its time to call it quits or be open about the fact and either call it quits or be ready to live in an open marriage where the pretense of trust is not there.

Also then there is something called financial cheating where a woman for example is attracted by a richer guy and lured by his money ready to spend more time both emotionally or sexually for the lure. This my friends is the dirtiest of all kinds and i'm not even willing to write on this any further.

What is not cheating then? Well just about anything you do with the prior knowledge or willful acceptance or  and participation of your partner  will not be called cheating. Be it sex or sharing some time or whatever you may call it.

This is a topic where i can go on and on but i shall limit my thoughts to only these may words and leave the rest for you to ponder  and comment or email to me.