Lesson learned...

Absolutely NOTHING happening in my world lately. So it's time to delve into my old diary and see if I haven't completely exhausted its topics already.
Women.
You can't read much more than a page of my diary, in any of its incarnations, without reading a woman's name. You'd think I was obsessed with them.
I was.
Most damning, I was usually fixated on entirely the wrong woman: the one down the hall, down the street, down the wire, rather than the one perfectly good specimen standing in front of me.

Cheaters are experts at rationalizing. There's no flaw in their mates they can't magnify; no circumstance in their lives they can't exploit. Everything becomes an excuse to cheat. Excuse? Hell, a reason. A good and just reason. Your girlfriend sucks in bad. Or more to the point, she doesn't. Your mate suffers from chronic depression, and hey, you can't leave her in that condition, or you might have a suicide on your conscience, but betray her by bedding that girl who hit on you online? Yeah, no problem there. After all, if you play your cards right, she'll never find out.

Except she will. She always does, no matter how good an actor you might be. Because--and it's amazing how many guys, especially, never consider this--eventually your mistress is going to get pissed at you about something. It doesn't even have to be about your relationship, and how you never have enough time for her, and how tired she is of waiting. No, it could be something completely mundane, an everyday thing, meaningless in and of itself. And before you know it, your mistress is holding you at metaphorical knifepoint.

I'll tell her.

You wouldn't dare.

Just watch me.

This is one of several reasons I don't cheat anymore. They say that once a cheater, always a cheater. I bet that'd go double for two-time-two-timers like me. But I'm the exception that proves the rule. I learned a few things after that second experience, see, the above being just one.

Another thing I learned--only recognized it in hindsight, of course--was that the people I chose to cheat with were at best poor copies of the people I was cheating on. Or that they were a dream in bed and a nightmare out of it--and since I really couldn't spend the majority of my time copulated, it worked out to a pretty poor bargain.

The first time I strayed, it seemed like an instant decision on my part: an opportunity came up and I grabbed it. Only later did I realize I'd been spending a good deal of my time orchestrating opportunities, because--I'll call her Lori--was increasingly boring the hell out of me.

Notice that? I, my, I, I, I, my, me.

I can't remember how I came to be in Trudi's rec room playing video games, but I do recall leaning back onto her bed and being attacked. Did I rebuff Trudi, remind her I was living with another woman, ask her what the hell she was doing? Hell, no, I did not. I simply enjoyed the moment, and let it go. And having enjoyed that moment--because, let's face it, Lori was the very model of prudery--why not make another few moments of it? And another?

Eventually, Trudi did indeed get angry with me, and threaten to tell Lori about her existence, and wracked with self-preservation and consumed by worry, I decided I'd tell Lori myself. I went home, unlocked the front door, and heard...sounds...like...LORI?

Lori makes SOUNDS?

I knew Glen's sounds, had heard them often enough mixed with those of anonymous flings, but...Lori?

I went up to my (our) room and thought about this for a while. So, as it happened, I never actually saw Lori leave Glen's room. So I suppose it could have been her twin sister moaning in there, if she had one I'd never met, that was. She never admitted anything. But she emitted only token bursts of upset when I told of my indiscretions. Knowing her, that was its own admission: on some level I had expected to be castrated.

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I'm not your typical guy--any cursory reading of this blog ought to convince you of that much. One of the ways in which I am atypical is that I've never been attracted to sex for the sake of sex. Even in my extracurricular dalliances, it was necessary to conduct a thorough brainwashing beforehand, to convince myself I was in love. Unfortunately, this was never a difficult thing to do, not for somebody as naturally loving as I am. I've always harboured a conviction that sex ought to be an expression of love, and in a sane world there'd be a lot more of it. Imagine that world for a second...

Damnit, George, I didn't get that promotion. They passed me over.

Hey, that sucks, man. C'mere, let me blow ya.

Wait a minute, you PERVERT! What kind of SICK imagination have you got?

Seriously, though. For a long time that was the ideal I strove to attain. I worked hard to imagine myself capable of loving more than one person at once...not necessarily sexually, but sexually if necessary, you know? It became just one more justification...yes, Anne, I love you, and I love Colleen, too. I don't love you any less for loving her.

That all stood exposed as the house of cards it was when I had an opportunity to demonstrate it. Colleen came to town, knowing she was assuming one side of a triangle. I had her here knowing the same. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, I found that concentrating my attention on one person inevitably meant I would ignore another. I hurt Anne so very badly, all the more so because I had spent literally years convincing her I would never do what I had in fact just done. When the nature of my error became clear to me, I made every effort at atonement I could conceive, all in vain. That might have been my first lesson as an adult: some things can't be fixed, no matter what.

I'm really grateful Eva took a chance on me, knowing my history. Most women would probably assume I'd betray them--all the more so if I said I wouldn't. The difference with Eva--aside from loving her as I'd loved no one else before--was that I'd learned. I'd actually learned.