Sometime ago, my good friend, Trent Peters, and I took a small road trip to see a concert of a popular R&B band we both enjoyed. We bought close-up seats along with $200 worth of merchandise. It was worth it, in both of our most honest opinions. But even though we were settled in our seats to wait for the concert to start, along with Trent already starting his drinking binge, it did not take me away from my new responsibilities as a girlfriend. Aiden Thatcher had gone away on a military retreat for a couple of weeks, so we texted and snapped each other as much as we could. And as I was enjoying my life as a girlfriend, Trent was enjoying his life as a single.
“Would.” Trent pointed to a girl who was posing for a photo in her black-bra and jeans.
“I understand,” I looked up for a second. “But that’s still gross.”
Trent scoffed. “Are you texting him right now? Let him sleep, bro.”
“He doesn’t want to sleep! And we’re long distance, I get an excuse.”
Trent nudged me to look up. “Would.” I looked up to find a girl literally posing with her boyfriend as their friend took photos.
“She’s literally with her boyfriend!” I gasped.
“‘So? You know what they say, “Just because there’s a goalie, doesn’t mean you can’t score.”‘ He laughed and took another sip of his beer.
I laughed too. “Yeah, bro? Like you could pull that?”
“Damn, didn’t have to do me like that.”
“What can I say? I’m not sorry.”
“I could if I wanted to, though. Everyone cheats.” Trent shook his head at me as he sat back into his seat.
That’s the line that really stunned me for a hot second. “Everyone cheats” was something I wasn’t expecting to hear. But I couldn’t help but press Trent for more details.
I leaned in closer to him. “That’s not true.”
“Yes, it is,” Trent repeated. “Everyone will cheat. Doesn’t matter if they’re a man or a woman. If you have the opportunity to cheat with someone super hot, you will take it. And this is because everyone is a shitty person at the end of the day.”
“I would never cheat on my partner.”
“Yes, you would. You mean if your favorite celebrity crush gave you an opportunity to fuck, you wouldn’t take it?”
“But I would never meet my celebrity crush.”
Trent pointed at me with a grin. “That’s my point right there. Men and women will cheat if given an opportunity to fuck or be with someone better. They just don’t feel like they have good options.”
I couldn’t actually believe what I was hearing. It started to make the gears turn in my head. I had never once considered cheating on Aiden in my life. Even if my favorite celebrity crush came to me, I still wouldn’t take it, honestly. I only want to be with Aiden. However, it really started to make me wonder how many people would take the chance to cheat if they could. How many people wouldn’t resist fucking someone hotter or richer than them.
“Do you think Aiden’s gonna cheat on me?” I asked.
Trent responded with a shrug. “I mean, from what you’ve said, he seems like a good guy. I don’t think he’ll cheat. But you never know.”
That’s where the conversation ended because the band came out on stage. Yet, I thought about it for days after. Not only in modern dating, but all throughout history, men and women have cheated on their partners. Landon cheated on Liz, Kristen cheated on Robert, Prince Charles cheated on Diana, JFK cheated on Jackie, King Henry VIII cheated on Catherine of Aragon, and so many more. I can even go a bit more personal to say that I have known people who have been cheated on and have done the cheating. And these people all ranged from being in middle school all the way to being grown adults. With all these connections in mind, it began to raise more questions for me.
Are all people cheaters who just haven’t found the perfect time to cheat? Will all people cheat eventually? Is being faithful something we as humans just can’t biologically do? Or if someone can be faithful, why can’t others be too? I didn’t know, but I was going to get to the bottom of it.
As I was figuring out that bullshit, I was getting another kind of shit together for a surprise part for my friend, Brianna Martinez. Some of my coworkers and managers from the movie theater were going to set up the party at her apartment while she was at work. Her boyfriend, Jacob Flores, was in on it. Trent, I, and our friend Olga Bennet came to find about eight others there too. And just because I decided to be responsible and not drink, doesn’t mean the others had decided that too.
Olga held up her drink to me. “Do you want a sip?”
“Yes, please.” I nodded. But after one taste, I was nearly gagging and crying.
“Oh, what the fuck is this? This is awful.”
“It’s Sprite and vodka.”
“How many shots of vodka is this?” I wiped my tears of pure pain.
Olga shrugged at me and took her drink back from me. “Not that many…six.”
“Fuck, bro. Nah, you can keep that shit.”
“I planned on it.” Olga laughed. “How’s Aiden?”
“He’s fine, at his military thing. Probably fucking one of the female comrades or whatever.” I rolled my eyes, but Olga was quick to hit my arm.
“Babe, stop! He wants to be with you. He wouldn’t be if he didn’t want to be.”
“I don’t know…I guess Trent got into my head about some things-“
Olga snickered. “You’re gonna listen to Trent? That fucking alcoholic? Girl, be so for real right now.”
“Hm, I guess you have a point.” I smiled. “Trent’s lack of game is embarrassing.”
That’s when Trent tapped our shoulders. “That’s friendly fire, dog. Kill yourselves.”
Our manager stood up and exclaimed. “Brianna’s coming!”
We stood together in the living room, turning the lights off with the flashlights of our phones on. When Brianna opened the door, we screamed “happy birthday!” to which she seemed to have a mix of embarrassed and joy on her face.
Brianna had the widest smile and pointed at all of us. “I knew it was weird when you all turned off your locations! I saw that!” We laughed along with her as we settled into the rest of the night. She opened her gifts, and we laughed our shared pieces of cake. But in the room of all my friends, I looked around at everyone. They’d all dated and broken up with people before. What were their experiences? How many of them cheated or had been cheated on? It brought me right back to where I first started, with absolutely no leads to answering my questions over cheating.
Later that night, I remembered having a conversation with a friend a few years ago. Supposedly, men and women cheat for different reasons. Men cheat because they feel like they can do better than the woman they’re already with. Women cheat because they don’t feel secure and happy in their relationships. I guess this is where women are defined as “emotional” beings while men are “physical” beings. Maybe this is also why in American divorce rates, it’s usually the women who initiate it. The whole cheating phenomenon wasn’t a question with one answer; it had many different questions with not enough answers.
It was 2AM, and I was still wide awake. I couldn’t sleep because of this bullshit cheating thing I was so hung up on. Or maybe it wasn’t just cheating. Maybe it’s that I was afraid that Aiden was going to leave me for someone better. It was insecurity talking, but the issue is that I was listening.
Beep!
That is when I got a Snapchat notification. I turned my anxious head over to see that it was Aiden. In all honesty, I wasn’t really in the mood to talk to him. I had too much panic going on in my brain. Yet, curiosity killed the cat and I grabbed my phone. I opened it to see a message:
“Just had a crazy dream and woke up. I wanted to see your face one more time before I went back to sleep.”
I smirked over the message before sending a photo to myself, then going back to bed. And finally, I was able to fall asleep. No waking up in the middle of the night and no more questions.
Perhaps it’s too complicated to really know who will cheat and who won’t. If there’s really only one answer to why people cheat on their partners. But if you’re lucky enough to have a partner you trust, and someone who shows they care, then maybe it’s not worth being anxious about right now. There are no guarantees in any relationship. Not that you two will be together forever or that nothing bad will ever happen between you two. But one thing is guaranteed – it’s your best friends who will never cheat on you.