What Exactly Are the Elements of Cheating?

Jody: You got my son and you'll probably be my wife. You want me to be honest?
Yvette: Yeah, I do.
Jody: You're my woman. Them other hos is tricks. I make love to you, I want to be with you, but I fuck other females occasionally. I don't know why, I just do. That's the situation. You feel better now? That's some honesty for you. Deal with it.

(Baby Boy 2001...got to appreciate ghetto love at it’s finest)

Dayum Jody, why you gots to be so trill! Truth is, women cheat too. I’ve cheated twice actually. Once physically, the other emotionally. I’m guessing the latter is worse, considering now I’m in love with the other man and my ex is well…my ex.

I’m not sure who cheats best, but I can definitely say the term “cheating” should only be afforded to two people who have verbally agreed to be in a monogamous relationship (and don’t get me started on the term monogamy and is infinite implausibilty). So if broken down, cheating would be:

Two people
In a relationship
Who verbally agree
To NOT fuck anyone else
So if one element is missing, it can’t be considered cheating.

For instance, my home girl found out her friend slept with another woman. She was livid. Vowed never to speak to him again. Deleted his number. Resaved it but changed his ringtone to Regrets by LeToya Luckett.

Her friend obviously dodged the “What Are We” conversation and no titles, boundaries, or rules were established.

So my thing is, did dude really cheat?

Like, there needs to be another word for people who are only fucking, but believe they are only fucking each other (even though that rule hasn’t been established either), and step out to fuck someone else.

The real problem is, folk need to stop entering into these quasi-relationships with no definition, and try to define everything only after someone fucks up. If dude isn’t your boyfriend, then why can’t he fuck someone else?

No it’s not nice or fair or safe, but umm…you can’t curse him out, accuse him of cheating, and claim he can’t be trusted because he fucked another chick when you were NEVER his girlfriend.

And I know, some people abhor the titles boyfriend/girlfriend, because what do they really mean? The only thing some consider a viable status is engaged and married. And I totally understand, but perception is a beast and if I perceive being your girlfriend and you being my boyfriend as something special, sacred, monogamous…then shit, that’s what it is!

Lovely always warns me: don’t ever let a man get away with never establishing what y’all are. No man wants to have the dreaded conversation where he’s faced with cutting off his other bust its to knight you as his only and number one, but hey…shit be like that sometimes.

Thing is women know this, so to keep the man around we avoid the conversation or let him shirk away from the responsibility of claiming you outside of the bedroom. Next thing you know, the nigga fucks up and you want to cry, curse, and blame him.

But my dear, you can only blame yourself for subjecting your heart to a quasi-relationship where the crime of cheating does NOT exist.

Maybe he can be charged with lying after he’s asked about said mentioned girl and denies her existence and/or their sexual relationship…but people lie every day, and lying doesn’t get you a stunning 8-carat purple diamond ring worth about $4 million (oh wait, neither does cheating…you need to be charged with rape for that mess to happen).

So stop fucking dude, become his girlfriend and then come holla at me about how the nigga ain’t shit, otherwise I don’t want to hear it.