Thursday, March 25, 2010

love and genetics

The other week I was hanging out with some other consultants and we had a discussion about love and monogamy. I always start that discussion with any married person I know just because I like to see what people think about the topic.

Recently, based on some guy research and information, I decided that it's impossible for a guy to be in a monogamous relationship, and that women shouldn't take it personally when men cheat on them because men aren't capable of having the same emotional commitment to a relationship that women do, mostly because they will never have to push a person out of their vagina so they don't really get love. They don't understand the emotional implication of sleeping with someone else and that's why they do it.

But then I was talking to Texas, one of my favorite consultants. Well, my favorite now that my italian requirements partner has flown the coop. He got married when he was 19. He's still as in love with his wife as he was when he met her. You can tell by the way he talks about her. He's not one of those guys constantly on the phone or whatever with her or needing to talk to her for every decision (you know, the guy that you look at and are like "whipped, wimp, what are you a woman"). His wife was diagnosed with MS and he's doing everything he can to take care of her too, so it's not like she's totally perfect and therefore easy to love.

I asked him why his marriage has been so successful and how he is still in love with his wife after a billion years of marriage. He said "you have to stick together even when one of you doesn't like the other one, or when you both don't like each other". I asked him how did he do that. He looked at me like I was an idiot and he said "because you love each other and you want it to work out".

So I started wondering if it's the person that is willing to put in the effort to stick it out or is it the person that they are in a relationship with that makes them stick it out. For example, if I were married to NDGT would I stay with him because I'm that kind of person or because I think NDGT is the coolest guy ever? For the record, I think he's married, and I'm not trying to insult his wife. I've been watching my favorite universe again and I just love it when he talks about binary stars. I think NDGT is possibly one of the coolest people on the planet. Besides me, of course. I wish he would invite me over for dinner some night so we could have a conversation somewhere else besides in my head.

Um...where was I...

Oh yeah. So, if anyone knows the answer to my question, can you please post it as a comment. I'm curious.

I once dated a guy who was completely loyal to his wife even after he found out she was having an affair. Finally, though, he couldn't take it anymore and gave her an ultimatum: either dump the affair guy or he was going to leave. She refused to end the affair so he left. I wasn't sure about dating the guy, but everyone kept telling me how loyal and whatever he was.

But, within 3 months of our relationship, he slept with someone else. And sent me an email about it. Like I was supposed to be proud of him. Anyway, shortly afterward the relationship rolled off the proverbial cliff.

I've always wondered if he was an asshole or if he just didn't like me as much as he liked his ex-wife.

1 comment:

  1. Yeah. This would be more interesting to debate in person, because I'm constantly reading your indictments of all males everywhere. But I want to point out that many women cheat too. Maybe it's for different reasons (you could argue men do it for sex while women do it to fill an emotional void), but I'm not even sure that's true. I think the underlying cause for everyone is just a feeling that something's missing in their lives that they think can be filled by another person. I also have to think that cheating is much more rampant than in the past because there's much more intermingling between the sexes these days--at work it used to be all males and the proverbial secretary. Now it's half and half and people spend as much time at work as they do with their significan other. So basically there's a lot more opportunity to fall into the trap.

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