Cheating

I've been cheating again.

It's always fun to start with something profound like that, ya know? A heavy statement to make all the girls that know me forget about what they were doing five minutes ago and grab a frying pan out of the kitchen. I can practically hear the clanking of cooking utensils now. "Where's that one?" They're thinking to themselves. "The really big one with the notches in the handle. It's got to be here somewhere."

Well, before you call me to arrange a Desperate Housewives version of Fight Club let me clarify some things... It's not what you think... Really... Can't we talk about this? Please just put the skillet down for a moment and keep reading.

Okay. So about four and a half years ago my old roommate left and joined the marines. He's like a brother to me and I told him he would always have a home here. Then, while he was stationed in North Carolina, he met a girl and got married. It was at that point that I realized that he was probably not moving back and I finally decided to go ahead and rearrange his room a bit. Then, sometime in mid 2011, I received a call from him and we talked for a while. He explained how he had recently gotten a divorce and how he had been researching a college in my hometown. Basically, in ten months when his tour is up he'll be moving back in.

Fast forward to about three weeks ago when I ran into an old friend. A very old friend. We're talking about a person I haven't seen or talked to since the sixth grade. As much as my family moved around when I was a kid it's amazing that anyone from anywhere remembers me at all. Needless to say it was quite the shock and was really a bit of a life changing event. Evidently I'm a much more memorable person than I had ever given myself credit for. Anyways, it turned out that he had just moved back here from New York and needed a place to stay. How could I say no?

Unfortunately this is where everything gets confusing. Society has a bunch of crazy, unwritten rules that everyone is supposed to abide by. Most of these rules I actually abhor, but still find their twisted sense of justice interesting.

I suppose in this case I've probably over analyzed cheating to a fault, but I can't help but wonder what makes it so horrible. Somewhere in our minds there is a switch that goes from calm and happy to hurt and vengeful when we find out that we've been cheated on. But in nature there are very few animals who mate for life. As a matter of fact, most of them have new partners frequently. Granted humans do strive to seperate themselves from the animals and I'm not exactly trying to single handedly repopulate the human race. That would be frightening. A new species of semi-intelligent sex-crazed, quirky bipedals who's main goal in life is to reshape the world the way they want to see it. The government may have let one pass inspection, but if we started gaining in numbers they would reopen hunting season to the brink of our extinction. On a side note I'm convinced that this is why there's only one of me left.

Anyways, when it comes to cheating society will tell you to forget all of your instincts, ignore your intuition and rebel against nature. It's one of those don't-even-think-about-doing-what-you-were-created-to-do rules. Just because that girl is hot and half naked doesn't mean you're allowed to think about her in suggestive ways. YOU HAVE A GIRLFRIEND!

But wait! Actually I don't have a girlfriend at the moment. So where the hell am I going with all of this? That's where it gets a little tricky. This is why you can call off the lynching party: I'm roommate cheating. That is, while my first roommate is away I've got a second one on the side. What can I say? It's a relationship of convenience. It's not that I like my original roommate any less or my new roommate any more. They're both great to live with but for different reasons... I could probably go on, but I think you get the picture.