i've_been_cheated_on magicforest Hold that thought. I'll be right back. *sighs* 040224 ... p2 you_are_not_alone 040225 ... white_wave i hope he never utters those words to me. i use all my willpower not to make him suffer. 040225 ... but further i tell you for your pain, i deeply sympathise. 040225 ... hy congratulations. 040226 ... jimmy on the bright side, if you can play guitar, you have a possible career in country music. 040226 ... Lemon_Soda to say "i've been cheated on" is to say a rule was transgressed against you. isn't the only rule "do as you will?" if thats the case your just getting upset they had a great time with someone else and instead of being happy for them your getting all pissy because it wasn't you. 040226 ... Lemon_Soda Not to say anyone should think any less of any one else on this, I just think its wrong to own someone elses body. 040226 ... p2 lemon_soda you seem to be a great proponent for noncommittal sex as you've made similar remarks elsewhere what if i don't believe in "do as you will" what if there is an understanding between two people not to share physical pleasures with anyone else without passing judgement on their views wouldn't you say that one breaking that trust is a transgression against the other? don't tell me that i should be happy if my trust has been broken 040226 ... Lemon_Soda first, if said agreement came to be, that would be two people doing as they will. second, I donot condemn them, I advise against them. third, your happiness is your responsibility, noone elses. fourthly,trust is an expectation. Sometimes expectations are not fulfilled. its always disturbing when reality doesn't follow your concious wishes. hoow much will you let it rule you? 040226 ... p2 first, oh brother in that case you are always doing as you will since even if you won't do as you will you are willingly not doing as you will in which case this argument is pointless second, who said anything about condemning? third, it's not about shifting responsibility it's about expectations and trust which leads us to... fourth, not having an expectation fulfilled is one thing consciously deciding to break a trust is another if you are trying to equate the two then you must not think much of the promises you make 040226 ... Lemon_Soda First:Not pointless, proven. Second:Sorry. More of a FYI sort of thing. Third:It IS about responsiblity. Responsiblity goes hand in hand with trust and expectations(obligation being a small jump away)both of witch are based on our perception of the situation and the unspoken rules either of us has applied. A responsiblity to both do our best to fulfill them and the responsibility of excepting the possible consequences of that trust. This isn't gaurding you heart, its being wary of betrayal and reacting appropriatly. Even in my monogamy days I never spited a significant other for finding comfort I guess I couldn't give them in anothers arms. I just stopped being their boyfreind. I continue to be their freinds to this day and I bare not one of them ill will. perhaps I forgive to easily. fourth: Conciously deciding to betray a trust is different from not having an expectation fulfilled only in that one of the two parties concerned is the trust betrayer and the other is the expectations unfulfilled. and theres no reason to make this debate personal. 040226 ... p2 the first argument is pointless because "do as you will" becomes a fact of life rather than a rule to follow as you had previously asserted it to be re: trust & responsibility & expectations just because you can put the words in the same sentence doesn't mean it applies i understand about trust and the responsibility to try to fulfill that trust and to accept (or expect?) that the expectation may not be met however this is about betrayal not about unfulfilled expectations they may be similar but they are not equal a rectangle is a parallelagram but a parallelagram is not necessarily a rectangle assuming that unfulfilled expectations are a superset of broken trust i am focusing specifically on the trust that is broken when one cheats on another which is implicitly a conscious decision else it would be rape rather than cheating my reference to your views on promises is not a personal attack but an observation based on the principles that you've set forth a promise is made with trust if you see a broken promise as trivial a thing as an unfulfilled expectation and nothing more then i wouldn't expect much from your promises 040226 ... Lemon_Soda your saying its not a law but a fact of life because its immutable? interesting...I see those kinds of things as universal laws...but maybe we're saying the same thing with different words on this. it is a trivial thing when another breaks a promise to me. as for me, I don't promise anyone anything. are you saying its just wrong to break trust? or that its okay to feel bad about having your trust broken? clarify. (I'm leaving school now so I won't have acess to this for about 18 hours.) 040226 ... p2 ic i think i may have misunderstood your original message you were saying something to the effect of "the truth is, there are no rules, so therefore no rules were broken" i thought you were saying "if you love someone you should let them do what they want" as for your original intended message my cynical side will not let me disagree except to say i wouldn't describe the "betrayee" as being pissy rather than being hurt 040226 ... jimmy i think when someone says they were cheated on, they meant relative to the agreed upon rules. if the only way for someone to cheat is to break an immuteable law of the universe, then a) it isn't that immuteable, and b) following from that, there is no such thing as cheating. Cheating is a human word, it relates to social situations in which trust is broken. Two people may agree to rules and then cheat relative to those rules. If a boxer headbutts his opponent, or puts bengay on his glove to rub in his opponent's eyes, that's still cheating. It may be that he's just doing what he will, and that he happened to want to enter into the rules, but that doesn't mean that his operating outside of the rules surreptitiously to gain advantage is suddenly fairplay just because he wanted to do both things. The difference is that there is another person involved who holds him to a certain standard. His motivation at that point is irrelevant, because he surrendered certain rights when he agreed to the rules. Now the difference is that the consequences of rule breaking in a personal relationship are much more nebulous than in a professional one. When money is on the line, people hammer out rules with binding consequences. That doesn't mean a person can't or shouldn't feel cheated or be right in accusing the other party of cheating if they gave their resources to another person on the expressed condition that the other party stay within certain boundries of behavior. I happen to hold that within personal relationships since there is no real legal way of seeking justice, a person should learn to put it in perspective and forgive. However, if you are going to say people are going to do what they will, you should be careful who you enter into an agreement with. If you think you can secretly breach the contract, perhaps they'll see no reason why they can't do as they will and come after you with a frying pan. And actually, in legal settings, in a divorce hearing for instance, infidelities are evidence of a breach of contract of sorts and certainly courts recognize in such cases that one party may have more of a grievance and a more valid claim to lost resources than the other party. Either way, there's something to be said for trust. A team of trusting people can easily complete many tasks that a single cynical known cheater cannot (and known cheaters almost always have to operate alone). Of course as the strategies become more subtle and there are costs and benefits to defecting or cheating and getting away with it the rules are harder to define, and that's what game theory is. But being honest and trusting isn't some simplistic strategy, those qualities actually tend to payoff a lot more than living paranoid your whole life, or always looking for an angle. My main point though, is that people can cheat anytime they've agreed to rules. Cheating is a social word we've used to describe that exact behavior. 040226 ... oldephebe all i know is that it sucks to be cheated on...hurts like hell.. feel free to resume your debate, i'm enjoying it... 040226 ... jimmy and not many of us would do as well as you seem to think, if everyone thought the best strategy was free for all. 040226 ... jimmy also, do as you will is not the only rule. if that's an agreed upon tenet from the get-go, then you have a point, and a very interesting relationship. however, people who secretly carry around that philosophy while espousing another to those they want something from, are called liars and cheats, and rightfully so. There is no other definition for the word cheater than someone who consciously breaks rules they agreed to. Does cheating happen a lot? Yeah. There's an ugly side to social relating. Or if you see the beauty in games of strategy free from such caveats as mercy and honesty, an interesting side. 040226 ... .fallen ARGH .... do_as_thou_wilt ..... doing your will is not ... is NOT the same as doing as you wish ....... arrgh will work that one out later when the words are better.... but take note! doing your will is not equal to doing as you wish! o.k....I'll go find a better blathe to do this at ... it may take awhile still working it out 040226 ... Lemon_Soda Hrm. I think I lost what we were actually debating on. I think I'll just say that I personally take them as they come and to quote Sean Connery "I can't love people in slices. I take the good with the bad." 040227 ... misstree when one is cheated on, there is very much a feeling of betrayal; there was some promise of singularity, and the cheater went outside that to seek comfort or pleasure, to find some thing that the person cannot provide. this is why i personally avoid monogamy. if a relationship is built properly, outside interests can be indulged in without fear that something will be "taken away" from the primary partner. there is no being trapped; there is no reason to deny the other what interesting tidbits they can find. (especially if they share.) the pain of cheating is a result of emotions and sex being intertwined. for some, that twining is neccesary. for others, it can be present if invited, but is not neccesary. bah. i think i spewed myself out on this subject under: homewrecker. babbley morning. 040227 ... oldephebe A Sean Connery quote! Sean the still kinda swarthy and definately surly septuagenarian...I think i really would enjoy seeing Connery pummel the "hey i've got all the answers in front of me" smug and not really didactic ('cause he has the answers provided to him) Alex i shaved my dandruff infested gray mustache to televisually mack...his exxagerated french inflections besides being absurd make me wanna launch flaming bags of equine dung at his image...blech! 040227 ... love & hate mistakes happen, no one is perfect, especially me when you are not around. You are my perfection. 040418 what's it to you? who go blather from