The Shrine

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>If everyone remembers a couple of months ago I mentioned the fact I was seeing a girl who I knew was cheating on her boyfriend. Well in the end I did not come out on top, and she decided to stay with the guy. And she still has not even told the guy, and after reading the mix of emotions Eric's going/gone through I feel like shit. I really fucked up, and should have stopped after that first kiss. I feel bad for Eric, and this guy too when he finds out. My heads fucked up enough, and I wish at the time I had listened to everyones advice about it being a bad idea, because it was. It made this whole quarter a bitch to concentrate on and figure out how to feel, I couldn't even distance myself from the situation because I had classes with her. I look forward to this week being done and finals being done so I can move back home and walk away from this shit. Were still friends but fuck is it hard to be strong.

Don't ever see a girl who has a boyfriend till she breaks up (and out of respect let there be some time for her to be alone), cause it will fuck your head up, and it is really wrong.

I guess I did walk away with a good life lesson though.

Eric, stay strong man, and If anything I really am sorry

~Kevin~</div>

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>Heh, do yourself a favor, and hope she doesn't tell him and they stay together, what he don't know won't hurt him. And in the in end she choose him anyway, so it's all good. My girl didn't choose me, and I found out everything, so it's all bad.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>Some lessons you really can't be told.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>Hey, this stuff isn't really rational or objective anyway. It's not Eric's fault his girl left, and it's not that other dude's fault either. Hell, it's not even HER fault, really. But knowing that doesn't make anyone feel any better, unfortunately.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>But, in my defense I DIDN'T know. When they did tell me I broke it off asap, even though it was pretty hard with one girl. Aside from the cheating on her current boyfriend thing, she was great.

People are weak sometimes, and no one is perfect. Just don't let it jade your perceptions going into another relationship.</div>

<div style='font: italic bold 14pt ; text-align: center; '>Yeah but you do anythign with a vagina :p</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>I would still call it her fault for not exerting enough self-control.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>Agreed</div>

<div style='font: 10pt Impact; text-align: left; '>We all learn the hard way man.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>So would I.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>? Where would you get that idea?</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>It's just something that happened, I wouldn't really blame yourself, if she was hot, most free guys would have jumped on the opportunity =P</div>

<div style='font: italic bold 14pt ; text-align: center; '>You know I'm just playin with you man...by the way, I'm still working on finding my own way up since my dad is a cheap ass hole</div>

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>Well, I suppose if anyone's done wrong it would be her, but still...</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>Still nothing. If you don't have enough self-control to close your legs or put up your dick, you are just as much as an animal as the apes we evolved from.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '><b>Link:</b> <a href="http://www.tows.cc/cgi-bin/rpgboard/vie ... 64.html</a>

My reasoning:</div>

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>When it comes to things like cheating, lying, etc., I can, in most cases, be persuaded to lay definite blame on one person or the other. But you really can't expect anyone to hold to any sort of arbitrary rules in a post-breakup situation. All you're doing in this case is projecting your own feelings of hurt, despair and lonliness onto the other person, saying, "Hey, I'm feeling terrible, and therefore so should she. It's only right!" But there's nothing civil, or rational, or just about these situations, and there never will be. It's perfectly natural to expect such people to be respectful of your pain, but you can't expect them to base their life decisions around how you feel after you've split up - and that's what this is really about. That's the oh-so-deceptive root of the problem - that you still want this person to feel as though you're the most important thing in the world, when the fact of the matter is that they no longer do.

You can say that you wouldn't do something like this to another person, and that's fine - but that isn't really what this is about. The thing is, that if you <I>really</i> had your way there wouldn't have <I>been</I> a breakup in the first place, God would be in His Heaven, and all would be right with the world. All these demands about rules and promises and statutes of limitations, all this blame-flinging and claims about responsibility, are all simply dim reflections of that central desire. Sure, it pisses us off when a girl we really care about breaks up with us then moves right on to the next guy. And it pisses me off when it happens to my friends as well. But it's worthless to try and rationalize this as though there were some sort of social contract that she has broken. What you're <I>really</i> mad about (and all that she's really done "wrong") is the fact that she stopped caring about you before you stopped caring about her. What you're <I>really</I> brooding over is this fucking arbitary and capricious thing called sexual attraction. And all you're <I>really</i> trying to do is come to terms with the fact that you've been hurt so badly even though you've done nothing to deserve it.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>The thing is though, I wouldn't pass up a chance for possible true love just because my EX-girlfriend might think it's too soon for me to start dating again.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>It's more of a a question about how easy a person is. Some people prefer to have sex with a lot of different partners, it doesn't mean they are less human than the next person. In some cultures, polygamy is the philosophy.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>It's hard to say what true love is until reaching an older age. Remember High School days? most guys go through this, but you'll be head over heels in love with a girl one week, and a couple of weeks later you will feel that way about someone else and think your last love was a rather boring person.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>I thought of the question, "What are the moral responsibilities?" and that was my basic answer.

<i>But it's worthless to try and rationalize this as though there were some sort of social contract that she has broken.</i>

But that's exactly what a relationship is. Yes, the romantic relationship might have ended, but the general human relationship has not. I don't consider these "arbitrary rules"; I think this is a basic question of how we should treat other people. Dealing with the end of a romantic relationship is similar to dealing with a death; there's a grieving process.

When you get into a relationship, you assume certain responsibilities, and I think this is one of them. I take as a given that most relationships will end, and they will end with at least one party getting hurt. However, some actions I consider fair, and others I consider morally indefensible. I emphatically disagree with both points in the "All's fair in love and war" mentality. And if others are going to to treat us that capriciously, then I think they have done something wrong.

(And some of your assumptions don't work in my partiuclar case, which helped make it strange. But I'm trying to factor out my particulars and think of the general.)</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>What about the hour after you broke up? Half a day? A day? Two days? Is there not some amount of time you would consider too soon?</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>For the last time, there is no such thing as "true love". There is no such thing as a "soul mate". There is no such thing as "love at first sight". These are all romantic notions that are either illogical or go against human nature.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>Actually, it's just the opposite: there's really no time that I WOULDN'T consider "too soon." Until you've broken off pretty much all contact with such a person it's ALWAYS gonna be too soon.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>That's beside the point, really.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '><I>Yes, the romantic relationship might have ended, but the general human relationship has not.</I>

And that's just the thing. If all you <I>really</i> had or wanted was just a "general human relationship" then the fact that this person is having sex with other people shouldn't bother you at all! This is a lot more complex than you want to make it out to be. Again it comes down to the central imbalace: you still care for this person romantically while she (or he) no longer cares for you in the same way. The fact that this person is having sex with someone else now doesn't really change the situation, it simply gives you an outlet for rationalizing the pain and anger you feel. Whenever someone stops caring about us in this fashion it hurts, and we naturally feel angry at them for it - but at the same time we know rationally that it's not really that person's fault, that she can't help how she feels. When she has sex with someone else our unconscious sees it as an opening to lay blame and to justify this irrational anger we feel so that we may come to terms with it. "Of course, I'm not mad at her for not liking me! I'm just mad that she's with someone else so soon!"

I'm not saying "all's fair in love and war" exactly here. In fact, it's sort of the contrary. What I'm saying is that once her love is <I>gone</I>, and there is a mutual understanding by both partners that it is, that you no longer really have any hold over what that person does sexually. I just don't really think you can really presume that this person has some obligation to spare your feelings, since your feelings in this case are contradictory and irrational to begin with. In other words, the only thing she could <I>really</i> do to make you feel better is to care for you again romantically, which is more than you can ask of her. This severely complicates the issue of moral responsibility here. I called your statute of limitations an arbitrary rule not just because there's no definitive point at which it becomes alright for her to see other people, but because, as long as you maintain contact with this person and as long as you still feel the same way about her sexually it's <I>always</I> going to be too soon. If you still feel the same way about her a year later then a year later is going to be too soon for you (and I actually have a couple friends for whom this has indeed been the case).

So where does this leave her? According to you it leaves her in a rather strange moral space in which she is essentially at your whim - she has ended her relationship with you but she is unable to ethically begin a new one until <I>you</i> are ready for her to do so. I don't think that's fair.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>That wasn't my <i>only</i> emotion, I certainly felt sadness that what we had couldn't work, and it did hurt. Being able to feel that comes with time and the recognition that the relationship couldn't work. The difference here is that we were respectful of each other's feelings after the breakup.</div>