Photo via CC
Apologies again for my absence from blogging. It’s an Olympic year, which means my gymnastics expertise is in high demand right now. But don’t worry–I’ll go back to being wholly insignificant after the Games are over. But in the meantime–squee!
Anyway, I will try to post once or twice a week, especially when an idea pops into my head or I hear/witness something interesting. And when I was out of town this weekend, I heard something verrry interesting that I will share.
At a bar in a midwestern town, I met Aimee*, a young woman in her late 20s with a do-gooder job. Shortly after our group conversation began (there were two others in the crew), she started talking about the guy she recently met that she was texting back and forth as she also spoke with us. Like the busybody that I am, I prodded her for details because very little is happening, romance-wise, in my life so I must live vicariously through others, even through people I just met.
Who is he? Where did they meet? How long have they been going out?
She dutifully answered those questions and then added something unexpected. “Oh and I should probably mention that I have a boyfriend,” she said, explaining that she has been with him for five years.
“Are you going to break up with him?” I asked, taking her interest in this other guy as a sign that her desire for her boyfriend has waned and it’s time to move on.
“No. I like what I have with him, too,” she said matter-of-factly.”I’m just someone who needs more than one guy.”
As someone who regularly listens to Dan Savage, I often hear discussion about how monogamy isn’t for everyone yet I hadn’t met a person who just straightforwardly said as much. No beating around the bush or strange rationalizations. Even the guy who unwittingly named this website wouldn’t have been quite so honest and say that even when he is in a relationship, he is kind of on the prowl for someone else.
The big problem–her boyfriend does not know about the other guy nor are the two of them in an open relationship where they are free to pursue others outside of the primary relationship.
And that has led Aimee to go to extreme measures to hide her infidelity. She met up with this new guy while her boyfriend was out of town (as he is on many weekends) and he had left behind a hickey, which should be illegal to give to a woman after high school. Come on guys. A neck is not a nipple. Anyway, she hadn’t initially noticed it until a few hours before her significant other was due to return.
“I’ve never been more desperate in my life,” Aimee explained as she recalled what she did next. She picked up her hot curling iron and burned the spot on her neck where she had been marked. In the dim light of the bar, the red burned welt was still somewhat visible, like a lumpy scarlet A on the side of her neck, like a modern-day Hester Prynne.
I’ll admit that this is unfamiliar terrain for me. I’ve never cheated nor been cheated on so I’ve never been in danger of being caught for anything illicit in that department. Has anyone else out there gone to such extremes to hide an affair or hook up from a significant other? (Note: It doesn’t have to entail physical scarring. The emotional kind is also acceptable.)
*names have been changed
