1/19/2012

Emotional Scarlet

Story Sent in by Nicole:

Ryan and I were out on an evening walk together on our first date. He asked me, "Have you ever cheated on a boyfriend?"

I replied, "Once. In high school. I still feel terrible about it, but I and the guy I cheated on are friends, now. It's really become more of a teasing thing between him and me, and I'm grateful for his friendship."

He asked, "Really?"

"Yep."

"Hoo boy. Well, there's something we need to do, then."

"What?"

"Up for an adventure?"

"I think. What are we doing, and what does it have to do with me cheating?"

"You'll see. Nothing bad. Come with me."

"All right."

I followed him to a 24-hour convenience store where he bought a pack of construction paper. We walked out together and he led me to his car. Once there, he broke open the construction paper pack, pulled out a red sheet of paper, and threw the rest of the stack into his back seat. He then tore the red sheet into the shape of a capital letter A and handed it to me.

I said, "Thanks. What's this for, now?"

"It's the scarlet letter. I'll thank you to wear it upon your person."

"Uh, I didn't commit adultery. I did something stupid in high school, but–"

He closed his eyes and held it out to me. "Please. Just wear it upon your person."

"You're kidding me. No. That's really why we went to the store? For construction paper for you to–"

"Wear it upon your person. Accept what you are."

"Ryan, I'm not going to–"

"This is non-negotiable, strumpet. Wear it upon your person or I walk."

I froze, still unsure if he was serious or else taking a joke way too far. He turned and carried the letter with him toward the driver's side of his car. I didn't say anything, but he said, "Stop trying to dissuade me. I walk, as promised." He climbed into his car and floored it away. I didn't hear from him ever again.

61 comments:

  1. First of all, you dont cheat. And if you do, you dont admit it. Ever. Especially to some stranger you just met

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  2. Darn right! OP, you were the bad date here. Next time a guy wants you to wear a construction paper sign, even if you just met him, you wear it. No matter what it says. What were you thinking, turning down his generous offer to wear the noble vowel upon your person?

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  3. I, for one, think we should return to a time when we shamed those of less moral constitutions. Team Ryan.

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    1. Oh Steve! How I have grown to adore you.

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  4. Oh, please. She cheated on someone in high school, BFD. Team OP, the guy totally overreacted.

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  5. Yeah, you don't cheat...lying, on the other hand, is perfectly acceptable.

    OP was right, adultery refers to extramarital sex not just cheating in general, so a scarlet A would be inaccurate. And unless Ryan is a virgin who has never ever masturbated, he's really in no position to call someone a strumpet.

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  6. I like tea and strumpets.

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  7. I was team OP.... then Ryan used the word Strumpet. Definitely team Ryan.

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  8. I'll go team Ryan, because "Cheaters never win."

    Also, I agree with Steve. If somebody makes a bad moral choice, we should be totally entitled to judge them for it.

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  9. I laughed at strumpet. But other than that, meh?

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  10. People do stupid shit in high school and the fact that she was a) upfront and honest about it and b) had resolved it with the boyfriend, makes me Team OP. Also, it was in high school and it's now a joke between them? Probably wasn't serious at all to begin with.

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  11. Aside from the cheating, they were a great couple. That's what high school was all about: Algebra, bad lunch, and infidelity.

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  12. I might be Team Ryan if he had said, politely, "I'm sorry, that's against my core values and I don't think I can date anyone who admits to cheating," and then ended the date. I wouldn't do the same thing myself, because high school is high school and people are still figuring out who they are then, but he's entitled to his own standards. But making her an actual scarlet letter and trying to make her wear it? That's Crazytown.

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  13. "I, for one, think we should return to a time when we shamed those of less moral constitutions. Team Ryan."

    I, for one, think you are a sanctimonious prick. Team OP.

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  14. I think Steve was just kidding. I think we should return to a time when not everything on the Internet should be taken at face value. Team Strumpet.

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  15. Well, *I* wasn't kidding, regardless of Steve's intent.
    And captain Fluffy, could we maybe elevate the tone of this debate a few notches? I think it's kind of douchey to you to call Steve a prick simply because you disagree with him. If you're an intelligent human being, your argument should be able to stand on its own merits, without the need to insult him personally. (I recognize that I'm doing the same thing by calling you douchey, but you're the one who started taking the low road and you deserve to be treated according to your own standards.)

    As for "sanctimonious", that's a ridiculous argument. Is it "sanctimonious" to say that Bernie Madoff was a horrible human being? People who lie and hurt others (through said lack of integrity) are obviously inferior to those who don't - that's simply common sense. Obviously the OP's lack of integrity isn't on the same level as Bernie Madoff's, but it's the same principle and so she deserves scorn for her actions. Moral relativism has its place, but it's highly overused and applying it to every situation is a very dysfunctional thing to do.

    This doesn't change the fact that Ryan is totally nuts - it's ridiculous that he legitimately expected the OP to wear the letter. My point is simply that the OP did something bad for her own pleasure and if somebody wants to make her feel bad because of it, more power to them. Hopefully that will teach her to have more integrity in her dealings with others.

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    1. Agreed. I'm not down with the whole "She was just a high schooler!" argument. if you're in high school, you're old enough to know better. That being said, Steve went a little too far with it.

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    2. I'm working out which letters Baku-chan and wolfdreams would insist that I wear due to mistakes made before I was 20. So far I'm up to D, J, M, and T. There was almost a Q, but power failed before I could go through with it.

      Now can we work on the letters these two need to wear? There's an A in that list, too.

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    3. Perhaps an "R" for Reading Comprehension Fail? We both agreed the guy went too far.

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    5. The brain of a high school student (and I would like to point out that we don't know how old OP was when she cheated on her boyfriend. She could have been 13 yet still in high school.) is still developing, especially in the areas of decision-making and impulse control. While that shouldn't excuse teenagers from shooting up their school, I think it *should* provide a certain amount of leeway for those who cheat on their significant others while still being too young to vote in a major election or drink alcohol legally. Plus, the point that you and wolf seem to be missing is that she and the boyfriend made up and are good friends now, despite the HORRIBLE CRIME SHE COMMITTED AGAINST HIM. Obviously, the two of them came to the conclusion that "we all do stupid, awful shit in high school but can change into good human beings" and moved on.

      While the guy was well within his rights to say, "Look, I'm not really ok with you cheating, even if it happened a dozen years ago, and you haven't done it since," he DID go WAY too far by trying to make her wear a red "A" on their first date. Just as you two are going too far in broadly painting the OP as someone who "lacks integrity" because of ONE indiscretion she committed as a child.

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  16. Wow, Jared AND Wolfdreams defending me... I'm touched! (in more ways than one) ;-)

    Let this be a warning to you, Captain Fluffy Duck: I roll deep.

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  17. "Let this be a warning to you, Captain Fluffy Duck: I roll deep."

    Yeah, the judgmental tend to stick together. I guess you *never* made any mistakes in high school?

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  18. To be clear, I think that Ryan was 100% in the wrong, here. Nicole admitted to making a mistake and took full responsibility for it. "Crazytown" is the technical term that BethRD used to describe Ryan, and I'm inclined to agree with her professional assessment.

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  19. Oh, now I get it! So it's *actual* bad stuff when it's something YOU disapprove of, but when it's something OTHER people disapprove of it's just a minor mistake and they're being "sanctimonious." Thank you for explaining that to me.

    As for making mistakes in high school, you know I have. EVERYBODY has. What distinguishes my mistakes from the OPs is:
    1) My mistakes never hurt anybody I cared about, &
    2) I never made a mistake that involved dishonesty or lack of integrity.

    I'm not saying the OP *has* to live up to my moral standard. I've just saying that she lacks integrity and that makes her a worse human being, and (in Ryan's words) she should "accept what she is." Acting with a lack of integrity or conscience is one thing, but when the OP implicitly claims that others don't have the right to judge her for those actions, it just seems very hypocritical to me.

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  20. Sorry, let me clarify one thing - when I say "she's a worse human being" I mean only in that one respect - ie, integrity/truthfulness. It's possible that the OP is more compassionate and contributes more money or effort to charity than I do, so in theory she should be a better person in other respects. But in this one area she definitely falls short, and I don't think it's "sanctimonious" to expect that she recognize her shortcomings and accept that others who have more integrity may look down on her for that character flaw.

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  21. I think the thing I find somewhat puzzling about your approach, wolfdreams01, is that it seems to assume that most people don't have a single instance of dishonesty anywhere in their past. All you know about Nicole from this post is that once she was untruthful (actually, technically speaking, you don't even know that; her cheating could have involved a single act of infidelity, immediately confessed). Is it your experience that most people have led lives of perfect honesty, so any deviation from that is reprehensible? You, personally, have literally never lied or misrepresented anything? I find that kind of surprising. Usually a person is said to lack integrity when their dishonesty is habitual. I don't think most people would consider a single act of dishonesty, confessed to and forgiven by the person who was wronged, to be a lifetime disqualification from being a good human being, even in the 'honesty' category.

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  22. You raise some good points, Beth. I don't think Nicole's dishonesty is reprehensible, at least not without knowing the whole background. What leads me to the value judgement about her is that although she claims to be ashamed, her actions don't show it. She openly admits to the cheating and seemed shocked that she would get judged for it. She acts as if she's forgiven herself for her cheating, and I don't understand that. When it comes to my moral compass, I've made only a handful of mistakes - but when I do make a mistake, I feel bad about it for the REST OF MY LIFE. That shame is a constructive force - it stops me from making mistakes of that nature ever again.

    Really though, what I find genuinely reprehensible is Fluffy's dismissal of Steve and me as "sanctimonious" - and it's possible that I'm being too harsh on Nicole by instinctively lumping her into the "same team" as Fluffy. I speculate that because Fluffy can't live up to the high moral standards that some other people can, he tries to tear them down by calling them sanctimonious and implying that they are lying about never having made these kinds of mistakes. This way he can rationalize any of his own moral failings as being "normal" or "minor mistakes" instead of seeing them as a fundamental flaw in himself.

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    1. I ask this as someone who went through it and is ready to sympathize: were you raised Catholic? Or hell, even Jewish? That's the only reason I can figure why shame would play such a prominent role in your life. Do you not understand forgiveness and that forgiving yourself is an important part of growing as a human being? I made some bad choices when I was younger, but I forgave myself for those mistakes, understood why they happened, and despite not carrying the shame around with me like a shiny, golden rock I will forever carry and show to everyone who I pass, have managed not to make those same mistakes again.

      I'm sorry for you that beating yourself up about mistakes large and small for the rest of your life is the only way to function. Sorry for my harsh words in my above comment; nothing I say could be as awful as what you must say to yourself. :(

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  23. Seems wolfdreams01 thinks he's better than others because he imposes rules on himself to validate his own cliched self restraining behaviour.

    If some one does someting wrong and makes it up to the person wronged, there's no need to feel bad for the rest of your life. "To err is human", if you make it up and are friends with the person you wronged, then get over it and move on.

    When someone does someting wrong, it doesn't make them less of a human being. You are not above them. When they repeatedly do it and don't make amends, then you know what their personality traits are like. You can object to what they are doing, but you are still not above them. Try reading the Dalai Lama for some perspective.

    It sounds like wolfdreams01 got dumped or cheated on and he hasn't gotten over it.

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  24. He ASKED her if she ever cheated on a boyfriend! It's not like she brought it up. I'm not clear on why you don't believe her when she says she still feels terrible and is grateful for the friendship of the person she wronged. Personally, I find that openly admitting my mistakes is to the good, because the first step in prevention is the recognition that I have the capacity to do wrong. Besides, I thought you wanted her to have integrity. Once she'd been asked the question, by your standards she can't win. Either she lies about it, which is dishonest, or she "openly admits it". (Unless she immediately flings herself under a bus, which seems kind of extreme.)

    I'm glad your system works for you, but myself, I am not still consumed with guilt for bad things I did 20+ years ago, which is how long it's been since high school for me. Most crimes have statues of limitations; even many religious traditions offer some kind of way of putting paid to old sins such as confession for Catholics or the Day of Atonement for Jews. I agree with you that too much acceptance of bad behavior can lead to repetition of same, but at the other extreme I don't think it's necessary to relive past shame as if it were yesterday every time it's brought up in casual conversation to avoid doing it again. At some point, for most sins, I think it's acceptable to examine one's actions, internalize the lessons therein, and move the hell on already. What point that is varies with circumstances, but although I did not cheat on my high school boyfriends, if I had I certainly would not still be spending a lot of mental energy on it, or apologizing to my dates for it if I was dating.

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  25. Ryan was a dick in person. She wasn't. That should make it pretty much case closed, unless you're some sort of whiny, overly verbose poster...

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  26. The actual story:

    Ryan: Have you ever cheated on someone?

    OP: Uh yeah, back in high school. It was a terrible thing for me to do but I'm lucky enough to still have a friendly relationship with the guy I cheated on.

    Ryan: I have decided that you are a whore and need to wear a scarlet letter marking yourself as such for the rest of this date and indeed the rest of your life!

    OP:...No.

    Ryan: Strumpet!


    The story according to wolfdreams01:

    OP: So, yeah I totally cheated on this one dude back in high school LOL.

    Ryan: That's...not good.

    OP: Whateva! Whateva! I do what I want! You don't judge me!

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  27. RDBM - I don't "impose rules" on myself. It's biological, not religious or philosophical. When I remember something, it's more vivid than it is to other people - I don't just remember what happened, I experience it as if I was there. I'm not sure how other people perceive things, but when some people describe having a "flashback" that sounds similar to how my normal memories work. For example, if I think back to a fistfight that happened ten years ago, my adrenaline starts going and I feel a surge of anger and it's all as vivid to me as if it happened yesterday.

    You're right about one thing - I did get cheated on, and I'll never be able to entirely forgive her. But it's not because of some arbitrary code of ethics, it's because I'm not CAPABLE of forgetting. Likewise when I make a mistake. So yes, I have a code of behavior that's much stricter than yours, and to a certain extent I resent people like Nicole, who can casually hurt somebody and then have the luxury of just being able to "put it behind them."

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  29. Beth, my "system" is a series of elaborate coping mechanisms. I'm not saying it WORKS, but it's the only one I've got. So that's why I find it hard to believe Nicole when she says she "feels bad." The fact that she can casually discuss something that - if I were her, I would try to avoid THINKING about - suggest to me that she has absolutely no idea what "feeling bad" really is. So maybe this is petty, but I have absolutely no sympathy for her.

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  30. Everyone needs to cut wolfdreams a break here. He's got an excellent point; saying you're sorry for your past transgressions is clear evidence that you're not really sorry, and the reverse is equally true. Like there was that time wolfdreams robbed a bank, but when he was arrested and put on trial he refused to talk about what happened, so the judge said that was totally cool and let him go. And then wolf blew up an elementary school and 238 children and six nuns died, but he hasn't even thought about that, ever, so you know he's a much better person than that strumpet OP.

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  31. Wow wolfdreams01. I mean no disrespect when I say this, but you really need to relax and take a deep breath. When you say it's biological that you have the reactions you do.. it isn't. It's mental and psychological. Your thoughts determines these reactions. These are thoughts that you can control. You may need to see some one about it to acheive this, but I can assure you, it is your brain making you feel this way and not your biological make up.

    For the record, people can make mistakes, do bad things and feel bad for it AND move on. It's what humans do. We adapt to the situation and the circumstance and push forward to a happy life. We can't change the past, but we change change our future.

    Also, there is a difference between forgiving someone and forgetting what they have done in the past.If you can accept that humans will make mistakes, you will be able to do this.

    A lot of people cheat and a lot of people get cheated on. I was with a girl for 6 years, it was gong great, we played music together and had a healthy relationship. We got married and 15 months later she was off with another band member. yes it hurt at the time.. (I really loved that band hahaha)...Afterwards she did ball her eyes out to me begging for a second chance. I believed that she was sorry, I forgave her for it, but I couldn't take her back. We bump into each other from time to time on the music scene and we are amicable. I have my life and she has hers now. Neither of us will forget how the relationship ended, but it doesn't mean we can't move on with our lives and it doesn't mean I can't forgive her. My life is exactly as I want it to be right now, and if she didn't cheat, it wouldn't be this good.

    I think you resent Nicole for hurting some one and being able to put it behind her, not because you truly think it is wrong and she should feel bad for ever, but probably because you are having a hard time putting your event behind you.

    trust me when I say that if you address it honestly and calmly, it will go away and you will feel better. All things pass, even great pain.

    I hope you take this response in the spirit that it is intended, not as me having a go at you, but as me trying to give you some perspective. I don't envy your blood pressure. :)

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  32. Thanks for the well wishes, RDBM, but this is just how I am. My memories are always going to be extremely vivid, and that's just how it is. Before you think that I'm throwing myself a pity party, I assure you it's definitely not ALL bad - the best moments of my life are equally as vivid in my mind as the worst ones. I think it balances out alright.

    And c82d, I don't appreciate your comments. It was actually *249* children who died when I blew up that elementary school. Get your facts straight and stop trying to cheat me out of my legit body count!

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  33. Wow, my trolling turned into a heartfelt psychological self-evaluation for Wolfie. Quite impressive! And on a post called "Emotional Scarlet" no less... how apropos!

    I think it's time for group hugs or trust-falls or something... :-)

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  34. I'm a bit scared of wolfdreams now. As for how I feel about this post, I have no sympathy for Ryan. He took it way longer than he should have. I completely understand that someone who has been cheated on in previous relationships might not be willing to date anyone who admits to cheating. That's cool. But there is a polite way to do everything, and there is no excuse for disrespecting somebody on something personal they did to someone else years ago, when you don't even know the details of the situation. I have cheated years ago, in an abusive relationship where I was cheated on repeatedly before. So I certainly believe the circumstances matter. Also, people have different moral codes and some people do not think kissing is cheating at all (which was what I did). Things are not black and white and harsh, fast judgments of others won't usually get you far in this world.

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  35. Wolfdreams, I understand you much better now than I did before. All I can say is that you might want to try to keep in mind that other people react according to their own neurological makeup, not yours. For instance, if you asked me about my parents, I'd probably tell you calmly that my father is still alive and my mother died a few years ago. I'm not going to sob or show other visible overwhelming emotion, but that's not because I didn't feel any emotion when she died! I don't have the extremely vivid and involuntary memories that you do (it sounds like you remember *everything* as people with PTSD remember their traumatic event) so I can usually talk about her death without re-experiencing it, and even if I should be overwhelmed by emotion, I'm probably not going to display it in front of someone I barely know. It would be a big mistake for you to conclude that virtually everyone you speak to is a sociopath or a robot, just because they can talk about painful parts of their lives without being affected as though those things happened to them yesterday. You're kind of the exception, not the rule. That doesn't mean you're bad either - you are what you are - but it does mean that using the reasoning, "If I acted the way he/she's acting, how would that mean I felt?" is going to fail for you fairly often.

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    1. There's a newly-defined thing called C-PTSD now. The C stands for complex, and it means that you have suffered from numerous smaller tramautic events over a long span of time, rather than one BIG event from PTSD. Kind of like "death from a thousand pin-pricks." People with C-PTSD tend to remember negative things very vividly. It is common in people who had less-than-ideal childhoods.

      If this sounds like you, Wolfie, it might be worth checking out.

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  36. Beth, I appreciate the advice, but my unique perspective is actually pretty manageable. I generally don't think normal people are sociopaths or robots - in this unique case, I guess the story triggers an unhappy connection, hence my overreaction. From my perspective, the rest of the world simply suffers from ADD. For example, sometimes an acquaintance does something thoughtful and then looks surprised when I repay the favor many years later, or somebody who crosses me badly is shocked and horrified when I mess with their own life several years down the road. Even the cheating incident stems from this "emotional ADD" - we were doing a long-distance relationship, and I didn't realize then that people can actually FORGET emotions over months. Obviously I still feel betrayed when I think of the specific cheating incident, but holding her responsible for her actions would be like blaming a dog for being unable to do your taxes.

    And Steve, it's not just negative things, it's positive things too. ANYTHING I have a strong emotion about gets stored. Obviously this means introspection has a unique twist, but I don't perceive this as a handicap. Would you ever wish you had Attention Deficit Disorder? I hope that doesn't sound insulting. It's just that's genuinely what the rest of the world seems like from my perspective.

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    1. Wolfie, does that mean we should cancel the candlelight vigil we had planned for you? ;-)

      The two things that jump out at me from what you've said, Wolfie, are this:

      One, you vividly recall past events, even years later.

      And two, you feel you are different from "the rest of the world."

      These are two of the symptoms of C-PTSD. Now, let me say that I am no way qualified to dispense any kind of medical advice, but those are just things I've noticed from what you've typed, and what I've read about C-PTSD. I never even heard of C-PTSD until a couple of months ago, but it's been eye-opening for me, for personal reasons.

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  37. I think that lots of people vividly recall past events, and that many of us feel different from everyone else. Maybe not everyone feels this way, although I'd hazard a guess that not everyone who feels this way is C-PTSD.

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  38. Yes, please cancel the vigil, but keep the benefit concert/dinner! I also would like to be able to make a pre-dinner speech at the dinner regarding C-PTSD. (Which, incidentally, are also the scarlet letters that me and Baku will force c82d to wear for his harlotry.) ;-)

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  39. Nobody saying that cheating is nothing that terrible? Come on people, it happens, and there's a reason why scarlet letters are not used anymore by our society.

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  40. Also the guy had a fetish for her wearing a demeaning mark, not "doing a righteous action".

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  41. I'm sure there ARE people that think there is nothing wrong with cheating. I am equally sure that most of the people on here would call those people assclowns. I just started commenting here today, but I've been reading these long enough now to get the idea that most of the regular commentors would be unlikely to agree with the idea of a cheating-acceptable society.

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  42. Note that it's already accepted in our society. It's not a crime, you don't get punished for it by the society. It might not be acceptable for you, for your partner, or inside a relationship, but the society stays already pretty much out of it.

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  43. To see what wolfdreams01 really thinks of cheating, check out his responses to the story 'when maybe means yes'. What you have written here wolfdreams01 is a direct contrast to what you have written in that story. Basically, it is ok to cheat, as long as the person who is doing the cheating, is doing it with you. That makes you a hypocrite.

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    1. RDBM, do you ever find yourself suffering from mood swings? I ask because first you thought I was a bad person, then you felt compassion for me and tried to comfort me (which I totally wasn't asking for), and now you're back to thinking I'm a bad person. And now you're trying to convince other people of your opinion and you didn't even include a link! I'm frankly disappointed by your lack of effort.

      But seriously, either your logic or your lexicon are seriously flawed. You're calling me a hypocrite, which means somebody who holds a double standard. I don't see any disparity between the two stories. In both of them, I consistently hold to the belief that people who cheat are horrible human beings (although I eventually cut the OP some slack). And I have never cheated on anyone in my entire life.

      Maybe what you're not grasping is the definition of "cheating." Cheating, FYI, is when somebody in a relationship sleeps with somebody other than the person they explicitly committed to a monogamous relationship with. For example, when my first girlfriend slept with another, she was cheating on me and I'll never forgive her. But the guy wasn't cheating on anybody - how could he? He was single. Likewise, I'm not angry at the guy who encouraged her to cheat on me (whom she ended up dating). Why would I be? I didn't even know him; it's not like HE made any promises to me. He was just acting on a universal truth; that life is a struggle for limited resources.

      You're looking at this through the filter of Western morality, where doing something that hurts another person is wrong. But I'm a Taoist; hurting people is entirely OK in our religion - it's more of an aesthetic choice. What made my girlfriend a bad person the fact that she broke a really important promise to me. Do you get it now? There's no hypocrisy here - the core values are consistent throughout both stories. Hurting people is OK - LYING to them is not.

      So if I was single and slept with a woman who had a boyfriend, then (per my morality) I'd be fine, since I'm not breaking any commitments. The women who cheated WITH me though would indeed be a horrible person, since she'd be breaking a commitment. That's why I've never got into long-term relationships with those women - I hit it and quit it. Maybe it was immature of me, but it was entirely consistent with my code and therefore had integrity.

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  44. No, I don't get mood swings. I'm pretty level headed. You are the one with the intense mood swings remember? Just thinking about someone cheating on you sends your heart racing or something...

    You're bragging about stealing some ones girlfriend and then crying when some one stole yours. That is where I see a double standard.

    "Hurting people is Ok, but Lying to them is not"... I think you are the one with flawed logic. You don't like lying because it hurt you when you were lied to. FYI, it's generally not a good idea to do things that hurt people, there's this thing called karma... If you need an example, take a look at your life. hahaha

    I said it before and I'll say it again, I think you need some help... or a clue.

    Either way, I'm pretty certain we can agree to disagree. You live your life, I'll live mine.I don't see a need to waste more time with this discussion.

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    1. OK, so maybe I have issues, but that doesn't affect the correctness of my logic. Just because somebody hurt me doesn't necessarily make them a bad person, just as me hurting somebody else doesn't make me a bad person. I can be hurt by something - even deeply hurt - yet still see a larger perspective outside of that. As for karma? Let me tell you about karma. I used to be the world's sweetest guy to everybody, and people took advantage of me ALL THE TIME. It wasn't until I grew some balls and made some examples out of people who abused me that the world started treating me better. I'm still a sweet guy now... but only to the people who deserve it.

      Sorry to waste your time... but dude, if you were really concerned about wasting your time, why are you posting about me repeatedly on different posts on this site? Or even posting at all? Maybe it's not your time but rather the flaws in your argument you're concerned about. Either way, I'm fine with the "live and let live" philosophy.

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  45. Nope, I'm not worried about what you perceive as flaws, I think your logic is the one that is flawed. Brings me back to the agree to disagree.

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    1. You don't have to care about my opinions, but I'll share them with you anyway, since you SEEM to care about logic, even if you're coming to some strange conclusions. Here's the flaw in your reasoning: you seem to think that some actions (e.g. hurting people) are inherently wrong, even though every part of our society tells us otherwise. For example, if you shoot somebody on the street, you're a psychopath, but if a soldier shoots somebody on the battlefield, he's a hero. If somebody were to lock somebody in one place for years, it would be a serious crime, but the government does it every day as part of the justice system. Based simply on that, it seems rather self-evident that whether a given action is "right" or "wrong" is based entirely on the context of who's doing it, what their motivations are, and whom it's being done to. So when you categorically make a blanket claim like "Hurting people is wrong!" (or am I misunderstanding you?) it just seems poorly thought out and naive. After all, our government hurts people every day in many different ways, and most people support this.

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  46. RDBM's logic: it's generally not a good idea to sleep with some one's girlfriend, as some one usually gets hurt and it doesn't create good karma (I.E. you bragged about sleeping with other peoples girlfriends and then cried when someone slept with yours).

    Wolfdreams01 logic: it's ok to sleep with peoples girlfriends because the government uses correctional facilities to house criminals.

    I'm going to stick with the agree to disagree. We have different logic systems, I'm not saying I know everything or that I'm more right than you, I'm just saying to me, my logic is more... logical.

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  47. I love that he kept saying "upon your person." And "strumpet". That was good, too.

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