There's a very interesting article in this month's GQ which asks the question, where exactly is the line crossed into infidelity?
The article looks at the issue from a male perspective, and details the "lawyering" done with the definition of what exactly "cheating" means. It's something of a state of mind question for some. For example, some men in the article claim that since they were out of state/country, it doesn't technically count as cheating on their spouse. I've actually heard this one from buddies who've tagged along to Vegas for a road trip, and one who came with some of us to Cancun for Spring Break (without his girlfriend knowing!). As far as I know, there is no treaty in place or provision in the UN Charter that says once you cross the border into Mexico, it doesn't officially count if you have sex with someone other than your significant other in a bar bathroom.
So GQ commissioned a poll to see, where exactly a line might be for crossing the threshold from innocent into infidelity......
GQ polled 504 "cold sober American men" about infidelity. One of the topline results was......
59% of unmarried men in committed relationships have cheated on a girlfriend.
Now, this number can be either better or worse than you think based on the ambiguity of what exactly that 59% thinks "cheated" means, as well as the 41% who claim to have been true to their relationship. For example, another result from the same poll found.....
45% of men believe a post-massage "happy ending" hand job is not cheating.
So it's possible some of the 41% claiming to never have cheated could have been "jerked off" underneath a towel at the massage pleasure palace at some point, and then answered no to the cheating question.
As far as some of the other scenarios asked about.....
- 25% of men believe that if you fantasize regularly about another woman it's cheating.
- 32% of men consider a lap dance at a strip club cheating.
- 65% of men consider cybersex cheating.
- 92% of men consider "hooking up" with a coworker cheating.
- 96% of men consider hiring a prostitute cheating.
As for the question of why men cheat......
A majority of men (53%) say that they cheated for the sex, but men married for more than 20 years are just as likely to say that they did it because "something was missing" from their marriage (41%) as they are to claim it was only for sex (43%).
Another great & humorous article about relationships comes from the people over at Double Viking, with Questions From Your Girlfriend That Aren't Really Questions. For example, if you're girlfriend says "Do you think she’s pretty?" it really means.....
What it really means: "Prove to me you aren’t attracted to other women."
[...]She needs you to show that "mainstream" attractive women hold no interest for you, because otherwise she cannot consider herself the most attractive woman in your life – if the whole of society agrees that they’d cut off four fingers if it meant they’d get to sleep with Angelina Jolie, then your stated lack of attraction toward her means that you find your girlfriend more doable than Lara Croft herself.
"Where do you want to go tonight?"
What it really means: "Read my mind."
[...]The problem, of course, is in actually guessing a destination that your girlfriend will enjoy. If you ask her what she’s in the mood for, you’ll either get a bullshit answer ("I dunno") or she’ll tell you and immediately get irritated that you didn’t know her well enough to predict what she wanted.
"Don’t our married friends seem happy?"
What it really means: "I want to get married."
Nine out of ten times the question won’t be phrased like this (or worse, it won’t be a question), but the basic idea remains: your girlfriend is ready for a commitment that no intelligent man should ever, ever want to engage in. The question might be somewhat forgivable if it was even halfway accurate: no, Diane, our married friends don’t seem happy. Rob’s wife definitely seems happy, considering she gets to turn nagging into a full-time job, but there’s a certain...deadness to Rob’s eyes that isn’t really indicative of jubilance.