About Cheating on my Girlfriend.

Your Worship, please add to the record the following conditions of my current relationship: open and honest communication, continuing physical and emotional attraction, good sex, mutual respect, my love of her family, not a moment of boredom when together.

Judge: "What's your fucking problem?"

I agree, I'm not the unluckiest guy.

But my penis keeps gently rapping. Maybe once a year I'll meet a girl that makes my mind explore the what-if. What would happen if I cheated?

This year it's girl who works in the internet lounge I spend a lot of time. I'll call her M. She's younger, but the age difference is within single digits. She's quite the looker, with a body that makes my inner caveman beat his bongos. If I wasn't attached, it wouldn't take much to date her: I'd convince her to let me cook her dinner. That next weekend we'd spend one afternoon wandering somewhere picturesque. We'd talk for hours, compare our existentialism. Providing I never actually use the word existentialism, we might end up drinking wine and... you know.

In my head I've got the plot mapped.

The question is, why what-if? Maybe I'm a pig man with the urges common to all pig men. Does my penis control my actions?

Keep in mind, I haven't cheated. And I can't see how I would. My rumination is, why does this urge exist to when I'm so content?

Ego? With a new notch on the belt, is my ego's pussy jones (temporarily) satisfied?
Biology? Does the fact my deoxyribonucleic acid must replicate compel me to ejaculate into more, more and more fertile females?
Libido? I agree, I could do with more sex. What man in between year 2 and 3 of a relationship couldn't?

M and I don't have much in common. But there's something there. We connect despite smalltalk limitations. There's something genuine beyond the politeness. We anticipate our minutes a week, but it's clumsy and very careful, because we also know nothing can go further. She works here -- I patronise here: that's it.

In different circumstances I could imagine a year, or even two, during which I would be genuinely enriched with her as a lover, friend, and confidant. And to have that amazing body, naked...

Why I want to cheat isn't the interesting question, really. It's why I don't cheat.

My taste in women is somewhat peculiar. I'm attracted to females I'd admire, with whom I could spend a lot of time, go on adventures with, make memories. Sure, my head gets turned by the random, spectacular piece of arse, women with curves that'd shame Frank Gehry, whose brassiere technologies defy the laws of gravity and structural engineering. But then I eavesdrop on the vegetable scraps which pass for their opinions. I recoil, and perv safely out of earshot.

But M isn't one of those. So what holds me back?

Of course, I don't want to hurt my girlfriend. But there's more to it. I'm smart enough to cheat on my girlfriend without her ever knowing.

I know M deserves better. She has a good soul. I consider M an intimate friend I'll never actually get to know. I've lived years in my mind with her as my friend. In that hypothetical life, if we weren't attracted to each other, I'd want her to have a guy to give more than this current version of me. Anything less would be selfish.

Morality has evolved from romantic fairy tales. Fate will reward us with "the one". There will come along one girl, worth more than the others, as though the value of a person can be dismembered, weighed, and tallied like cuts of meat at a butcher. What if I find more than one true love? Does that devalue the one? What about a third?

As a fat man, it's much harder to pass on a pretty girl. Heard the joke about the Ethiopian and the Happy Meal? I have an ex-fatty, ex-friend who compulsively cheats. When he was fat, he was alone. So now he's not fat, he can't live without a steady girlfriend. Yet he can't stop chasing skirt.

But maybe my urges come from a place higher than my crotch. As a fat man desperately unhappy for the vast majority of my years, it's impossibly difficult for me to ignore any opportunity for a happiness -- even at the expense of another. It seems so wasteful.

I wish I could have parallel lives, co-existing versions me living in parallel dimensions. If I could, I'd devote one to M. There would be happiness in that place. My self that exists in this parallel life would stay with my current girlfriend. I'd stay happy here, too.

I love M. Differently to the way I love my girlfriend, not as much, and differently to the way I've loved other girls. Lives with Caroline, Sheridan, and Jennifer would all have completely different cities, houses, characters and endings.

Now I think about it, I don't love Jennifer at all anymore. Or Caroline. Those two loves lost, withered on the vine. It's a shame.