Cheating in Public
I’ve never been a great fan of social media PDAs. When couples post hundreds of photos of themselves snogging on Facebook, or use each other’s Facebook walls to profess their love to one another.
We all have mobile phones. If you can’t tell someone in person that you love him or her, then do so over the phone, or via text message. You don’t need to publicly share every facet of your love with everyone you know! If anything it tends to be a sign that things are anything but rosy, and you’re just trying to hide the cracks!
But something I find worse than simple PDAs, are PDAs when you’re cheating.
We live in an age where people seem to think public cheating is acceptable. A world where guys upload photos to Tinder, with their girlfriends and wives in. A world where you can easily stumble across non-single friends on dating websites, and where there are whole sites and communities online designed to help you cheat.
The more widespread something becomes, the more acceptable people think it is to do.
To give you an example of this, off the top of my head, I can think of three separate acquaintances I know who are currently cheating on their other halves. They’re not close friends, or people who have come to me in confidence to tell me about their infidelity. They are merely acquaintances. And yet I know that they’re cheating – two are married, the other is engaged. The reason I know they’re cheating, is because they make no attempt to hide it in public when their partner isn’t around.
As if that isn’t bad enough, what gets me, is the public dialogue which these cheaters have with their other halves online. Grandiose declarations of love. Sickly sweet couple selfies, and statuses devoted to their ‘special person’. And yet most of the people privy to those declarations, photos and statuses, know there is more than one special person in that person’s life.
Bizarre.
The part that angers me, is that by being so public with their infidelity, the cheaters involve everyone else in their lie.
No, I don’t know their partners, so I would never get involved or reveal the truth. Which is why the cheaters get away with it. They are only public around people who they know won’t say anything. And yet by showcasing their public relationship on Facebook, if you know the truth behind the lie, you can’t help but feel caught up in it.
I know life isn’t clean cut. And that people don’t always end up with the right partner. But we’re all adults. And as an adult, sometimes you have to make a tough choice. If you’re regularly cheating on your partner with someone else, in such a way that you end up living a double-life, then you’ve made the decision for yourself. End your relationship. You’re not being fair to your partner, or to any of the people who know about your infidelity.
If you really care about the person you’re cheating on, then you owe it to them to tell them the truth. Why should a bunch of virtual strangers know more about your relationship, than the person you’re married or engaged to?
No one likes a liar. And no one likes to be made to feel like a liar. And that’s how I feel when I see these OTT PDAs on Facebook, and know the reality behind the lie. I feel like I’m caught up in it. As if by sitting back and saying nothing, I’m making it seem socially acceptable that these people carry on lying to themselves, their partners and the world. And it shouldn’t be acceptable, because there’s someone innocent stuck right in the middle of it.
I have friends who’ve stumbled across friends’ boyfriends and husbands on Tinder recently, and I’ve seen the moral stress it places upon them. Should they say something? Is it any of their business? What if it was a joke? How will their friend react – will she blame them?
We shouldn’t have to be placed in those situations. If you’re not happy in your relationship, don’t just go on a dating website! End your relationship, THEN go date whoever you want!
You might think you’re being kind, and saving someone from being hurt, but you’re simply delaying the pain, and making it ten times worse when they finally find out. It’s cowardly. And it really needs to stop.
Miss Twenty-Nine xxx
30 Dates Blog - A Dating Blog 
So spot-on with this. People have always cheated but it feels like it is all getting so much more blatant and a bit more acceptable. It makes trusting people that much harder and, as you say, makes everyone around feel uncomfortable.
Glad you agree hun, thanks for commenting xx
Sorry for the barrage of comments – as I mentioned, I’m catching up.
The private adult community I mentioned earlier, is a site that is a very popular locale with the unfaithful. In fact, in some ways the advertising of the site begs for cheaters to join. It’s always been a tough issue, that the active bloggers on the site struggle with – trying not to judge people who do cheat, while maintaining our own sincere views against it. And it is imperative that your own profile specifies that you do not participate in infidelity, while avoiding making enemies on the site, by condemning all cheaters as nothing but selfish wankers – or else your inbox will get inundated by such wankers, whether to hit on you or tell you you’re a judgemental ass for daring to question their very valid reasons for cheating. 🙂
In my time, I’ve heard VERY few genuine excuses for infidelity, that I could respect. And they are all insane situations that most people will never experience – like your spouse has been in a coma for years, but you’ll lose the health coverage that pays their medical expenses, if you divorce them. Most people argue that they’re staying together for the kids – when statistically they’re probably doing more damage maintaining a highly dysfunctional household – or they just can’t bring themselves to break their partners heart, by admit they aren’t in love anymore. And most of the time, they’re full of crap. If the relationship isn’t working, then by hiding that and lying about it, you’re causing far more harm than good.
Not only are you doing a disservice to your partner by cheating and lying, you’re making a fool of them, and heavily implying that they aren’t an adequate enough partner to keep you from straying. And when the truth comes out, they’ll feel 10 times stupider, because not only did they trust someone who deserved none, but scores of other people know exactly how big a mug they are.
If I do find a long-term partner one day, one of the conditions of that relationship will be an ironclad promise that I will NEVER discover, that the happy and secure relationship I thought we had, had been slowly collapsing like a flan in a cupboard, and he was just too afraid of hurting me to say so. I would rather hear that my relationship is in trouble, on my birthday, after I just got fired, lost my home in a flood and had a construction crane fall on my car, than ever spend one minute in the dark.
And for those who convince themselves they don’t look like a massive ass, harping about their passionate affair on Facebook, because “Everyone cheats, right?” No, they REALLY don’t. And no matter how many times you tell yourself that, it won’t ever be true.
Bizarre indeed. 3 people you just happen to know??
I think it’s a little rude to make no attempt to hide cheating, because I wouldn’t even want to know that about acquaintances. That just makes for extreme awkwardness, and you might be obliged to help them lie later on.
Cheating is obviously a bad thing, but I can’t control what other people do. However, is it too much to ask that they not drag me into their web…?
Well said! Unfortunately I used to work in a field where lots of people worked away from home in the week and lived 2 lives as a result 😦 xx