Cheating That Isn’t Cheating?

Those of you who know me will know I’ve been on dates (and a in few relationships) with some questionable types in the past. I even wrote a poetry collection based on my experiences. Here’s one story that didn’t make it into the collection though.

When I was in my early twenties, I met a guy who I’ll call “D”, who claimed to be a camera technician. Whether or not he was, I’ll never know.

D took me where a certain soap used to be filmed, which he claimed to work on. We even had a drink in the pub, because there was no filming and so it was open to the public that day. None of this proves or disproves what he claimed to do as a living. I’ll admit I was attracted to his Irish accent; although not so much to his bald head. I was young and superficial — somewhere around the age of twenty and he was meant to be a few years older. Looking back now, I guess he was much older.

When he didn’t call, I deleted his number and forgot all about him, until one day when I switched on a certain talk show. D had contacted the show to get his girlfriend to take a lie detector test. He accused her of cheating on him. It didn’t take long to work out there were in a relationship when I went on a date with him. In response to his accusations, the girlfriend asked him to take a lie detector test too. Both came back negative; saying they were telling the truth. Neither had cheated. The questions they were asked were about sexual contact, any kind of physical contact, kissing and so on. They didn’t allow for things like the person going on a date, without doing any of those things. In my opinion, going on a date with someone while in a relationship with another person else is cheating and the test is flawed.