Shipwreck’s Guide to Understanding Men

Having spent much of my weekend with the boys, racing sail boats, going to a few pubs and clubs, and generally enjoying the female scenery with the boys, it has brought to mind a controversial area that Shipwreck is going to dare to touch on - what consistitutes cheating in a relationship?

Cheating is an un-written rule, and like all good un-written rules, they have their areas of grey.  How far can I go?  Will they find out?  Who else knows?  What would Shipwreck do?

What Shipwreck does in a situation and what you do may be two completely different things.  The only difference being our MORALS.

As Shakespeare delicately put it, jealousy is “the green-ey’d monster”.  As Shipwreck likes to put it, jealousy is “the green-ey’d monster that bites thou when thy one-eyed monster misbehaves”.  Basically it’s a dog-eat-dog or monster-eat-monster situation.  Fact is though, jealousy is bread from insecurities, and can have a devastating effect on a perfectly good relationship if you let the green-eyed monster get in the way.

Knowing your morals, telling people about them, and adhering to them are three different things.  Take Bill Clinton for example - his morals didn’t exactly fall into his lap as President…Monica did.

Adhering to morals can be very difficult in a world full of temptations.  We’re tempted to buy nice things, drive nice cars, have nice clothes, eat delicious food, and basically do whatever the social norm tells us we should be doing.  This social norm over the past 30 years however has shifted significantly.  I am reading a book at the moment that looks at the differences between Baby Boomers, Generation X and Generation Y, and how relationships have changed throughout these timeframes - drastically!

The key trend in today’s society with respect to relationships is the alarmingly high divorce rate.  I use the word ‘alarmingly’ because I have baby boomer parents who exist on the fringe of the generation where divorce was considered to not be an option - if you married John Humperdink, you’re going to be a Mrs Humperdink for the rest of your life.

In reflecting on how relationships have become more fluid, it raises the question of what happened to our morals?  Have they changed? 

The answer is no.  What has changed though is the number and frequency of temptations, and it’s not going to ease up. 

The world has become a much smaller place, and with it has come the ease of communication, travel & relationships.  30 years ago it was impossible to have a relationships with a hot blonde 200 pixels high by 150 pixels wide on your computer screen - now it is perfectly possible, and it is happening to thousands of guys & girls as we speak - it’s all there, just a few clicks away.

What this means is that morals are put to the test more regularly, they are strengthened, and as much as they are strengthened, they are often dismantled by circumstantial occurances which many people claim were not their fault (yeah right!)

Here is Shipwreck’s view on having relationships outside of your existing relationship, from a 21st Century perspective.  The scores next to them indicate how close I would rate them on a scale of innocent (0) to cheating (10) -

Online Love Affairs - 9/10 - You may as well be in their bedroom
These can come in many forms.  They can be as simple as meeting someone on a dating website, then meeting them for coffee.  Or as cyber as, well, taking your clothes off slowly infront of a round object sitting on top of your computer (I don’t recommend this - however safe they say the internet is, one slip-up and you’ll be the most watched video on YouTube for a very long time). 

Online love affairs via dating websites are asking for trouble.  Anywhere where you release personal details (age, height, hair colour, nickname etc.) is likely to land you in trouble.  One of my favourite stories is about ‘Mr & Mrs Smith’ who secretively put themselves both on a dating website without each other knowing.  They had an online ‘affair’ for a number of weeks and then decided to both independently meet up with their respective online flings.  Can you imagine the shock (and disappointment) on their faces when they arrived at the coffee shop where they had agreed to rendevous, only to find that they were having an affair with each other?

Online love affairs give a whole new meaning to romance.  The ability to communicate, flirt, and cyber-sensitize the other person without leaving your chair is, well, sad in a way.  I would liken it to being addicted to a drug - the thrills are awesome and you keep wanting more, but you realise 20 years later when nobody ‘real’ wants you, that you’ve just wasted years of your life getting your jollys looking at a computer screen.  What do you do then?  Update your profile on the dating website to say you’re still 25, and keep partying. 

Facebook Flirting - 3/10 - We’re all here to meet new people
If you’ve never thrown a cow before, been given a cocktail online, been rated out of ten, or had your ‘wall’ written on by some random, you’re not part of the 50 million people who consider themselves as ‘cool’ and have an account with Facebook.

Flirting on Facebook can be as simple as giving someone an ‘electronic gift’, writing on their ‘wall’, or ‘tagging’ someone in a photo (a sign that they recognise you).  Shipwreck logged into his Facebook account just after Christmas for the first time in a week to find 63 invitations to see whether I was interested in random people - effectively online flirts.  Ok, maybe my profile photo does take it a bit to the extreme, but that’s the way it is.

People generally get the hint if someone’s interested in them, and Facebook is a great place to give the odd ‘SuperPoke’ (I mean that in the most non-sexual way possible).  I will never forget bumping into a friend from primary school in a night club, someone whom I had not seen for 10 years.  He said “Man, you gotta get on Facebook…that’s where the ladies are at!”

Sure enough, he was right - being electronically ‘hit on’ by 63 random people in the space of a week shows that this is really one of the latest ways to meet new people.

Tantalising Texts - 7/10 - There’s only so much you can say in an SMS
“I wt 2 cum ova ncu” - who can spot the hint?  Text messages are like emails - they can be very alluring, very personal, and very dangerous…particularly if the person gets the wrong idea from your message.

For anyone that’s ever sent or received a tantalising text, ask yourself this - would I care if my partner went through my phone?  If the answer is yes, and you start to feel a bit guilty, it’s probably time you re-assess how much you value the current relationship you’re in. 

For those who watched Chris Lilley’s Summer Heights High, Ja’mie (the snobby private school girl who goes out with a guy 4 years younger than her) has a tantrum and dumps her boyfriend as a result of him receiving very innocent texts from a girl in his year.  This is after she stole his phone to go through it, showing just how insecure some people can be.

On this point of insecurities, Shipwreck strongly suggests that if you are with someone who you do really care about and you know that they may have issues with very innocent text messages from other people, do your relationship a favour, and delete them.  It’s not to hide them, because you’ve got nothing to hide, but to maintain the confidence in your relationship and not let it be tainted by innocent little things that might unnecessarily blow out of proportion.  If you have an issue with doing this, you either don’t value your current relationship enough, or you are probably trying to get back at your partner - not a healthy move.

Debaucherous Dreams - 0/10 - What goes on in the mind, can stay in the mind
Depending on how open your relationship is with your partner, you might want to keep your dreams to yourself.  Whilst I believe it possible to control what you dream about, most people can’t. 

If you do dream about some erotic encounter with some forbidden being, write it down.  Ha!  Just kidding…as if you’d do that.  Only ever share your dream with your partner a) if you think it’s appropriate, or b) because you simply want to get it off your chest.  Never share it with them if it’s purely because you’re feeling guilty about it - you’ll just land yourself in trouble and wish you were asleep again.

…

So what consistutes a 10/10 for cheating?  Well that’s up to you to decide based on your morals.  The scores I’ve given above will be different for everybody - I know a number of people who would rate Facebook flirting as 10/10, and even a few religious people who would rate debaucherous dreams a 10/10 and run off to the confession box to ask for forgiveness!

Whatever your scoring system, it’s important that you and your partner have a scoring system that is somewhat similar.  Whether it’s as simple as “You can look at, talk to, but can’t touch” or “I am a Goddess, if you dare to look elsewhere you’ll be struck by my lightening”, having a similar scoring system to your partner is a key compatability component to a relationship.

I know two couples that would fit perfectly into each of these examples - and their relationships have lasted through trying times, simply because they know what each other will and won’t accept.  In the latter example, a good friend of mine might be 20,000km’s away from his partner, yet he will refuse to take an interest in any genuine friendly female approach.  I personally see it as a shame as it doesn’t help grow him as a person, but it works well for them as she would be doing the exact same thing 20,000km’s away.

Ask yourself…what would I accept if I were in my partner’s shoes?  If you wouldn’t accept what you’re doing, chances are you’ve overstepped the mark and you are cheating.  Don’t let this happen to a perfectly good relationship for the sake of some cheap thrills, or a few martini’s on Facebook - it can quickly bring to an end something you were very lucky to have from the start.