I have noticed as I get older that more and more people generally agree with my sentiment that Valentine’s Day is basically an over-commercialized farce.  Yeah, yeah, one could argue that Christmas would also fall under that category..but I would have to disagree.  There are some harsh truths about Valentine’s Day that make this “holiday” completely silly.

Grown women squeal when they receive a teddy bear on this day and I am of the opinion that after the age of 16, you are too old to get excited over stuffed animals.  Crappy chocolate and heartless Hallmark cards are another silly gift.  Have you ever actually attempted to eat some of those chocolates?  YUCK!  Lastly, the red roses.  When I see a bouquet of red roses I think of funerals.  I’m not entirely sure why I get so macabre about it, but red roses are terribly cliche.  All of the above gifts are cliche….and cheap.  So what else do you get a lady?  Jewelry.

Guys, if you get your special lady a nice sparkly piece of jewelry, you KNOW that she’s going to do that one thing for you..you know…the one thing that she only does for you on your birthday…yeah.  Diamonds and gold basically put you in a position where your partner basically has to do that one special thing.  A nice dinner and a spa day?  Get ready for a great night.  But you know what?  Your lack of imagination is going to get stale after a while.  If your partner is desperately looking forward for Valentine’s Day so that you can show them how much you care, then you must be a really cruddy lover.  One or two days a year to make your lover feel special is just crappy.

I have a suggestion to save this day.  Let’s drop all of the corny stuff.  No longer shall we have to look at stores crammed with red and pink Valentine’s crap.  No more red roses and cheap chocolate.  No more stupid stuffed animals holding stuffed hearts.  No more sweating over if she wants the princess cut diamond or the marquis cut.  Let’s bring to light what this holiday is about under the surface.  Sex.

Take your lady to the lingerie shop and encourage her to model for you.  Sneak into the changing room for a feel and rub.  Go together, hand-in-hand, to a sex shop.  Pick out some toys to make sure that the night will be interesting.  Get an adult movie for some inspiration.  You might also want to go ahead and get that gallon jug of peach-flavored lube…it’s going to be a long night.

Do all of this together.  Giggle and enjoy each other.  Don’t be embarrassed.  The only reason to be embarrassed is if you were doing all of this to pleasure yourself alone in a dark room, but you’ve got a person there with you.  A person who is willing to experience this with you because they care for you and trust you.  If that doesn’t say love, then I don’t know what does.  It’s not a bunch of flowers, that’s for sure.

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A close friend of mine has a very sweet yellow lab.  This yellow lab gets very excited when people wrestle or rough-house in his presence and he wants to join in on the fun.  This never bothered her until she was having sex on her couch and her dog decided to lick her brown eye.  True story.

Sometimes we get so caught up in the moment that we forget about our pets and how our boinking must look and sound to them.  The act can sometimes look violent or disturbing to our furry companions.  This can result in some funny stories to share with friends or it can ruin the mood before the act is even finished…even if someone is prematurely happy.

I once dated a guy who had a smaller breed of dog and every time we would have sex, the dog would run around in circles and bark frantically.  It was very annoying.  I, myself, have always had cats.  While most of my cats have usually ignored my sexual activities outside of the bedroom, I had one who thought that “human-sex-time” equaled “kitty-cuddle-time” and he would cuddle up on the chest of the person on the bottom of the sex fun.  He took great offense when we would shoo him away.

I used to let my current cat sleep on my bed.  When I would be having sex in my bed, she would jump to the floor and stare up at me in a stoic manner and wait for the bed to stop shaking so she could go back to sleep.  It was weird sometimes to be really into the moment and look down to see my cat looking at me like, “Come ON already!”  Pets are now forbidden in my bedroom.  I needed a little more peace so that I could enjoy the handcuffs and the ceiling-mounted mirrors.

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Believe it or not, there are a large number of people who make a conscious decision to keep their virginity.  Some are saving it for love and others are saving it for marriage.  This decision comes from religious and moral views, but there has also been some evidence to suggest that the decision to preserve one’s virginity might be a backlash against society’s views on sex.  There seems to be a feeling that our society is starting to view sex in a way that is too casual and void of intimacy.  For some people, that kind of sex life is unacceptable.

On the other side of the fence are the reluctant virgins.  These are people who ran out of the gates looking to lose their virginity before it became inappropriate to still be cherry.  For whatever reason, these poor people were unable to pop their cherry before the age of 20.  I feel so sorry for these people because of the humiliation and stress that they feel.  To them, sex is this enormous and unattainable prize that is just beyond their reach.  We are unable to explain to these people that sex isn’t nearly as big as they are thinking because we are more experienced and are able to approach sex with a more relaxed mentality.  I, myself, am unqualified to give any advice.  When I was a teenager, I quickly got that “first one” out of the way so that I wouldn’t have to think about virginity anymore.  There was a very “get it over with” mentality with me that lacked any sort of romance or intimacy.

Now that I’m older and I’ve had a few years to really experience an adult sex life (not the awkward teenage sex we all try to forget), my feeling is that these reluctant virgins need to stop stressing about it.  There’s no reason to feel embarrassed, and by feeling ashamed, you are only putting more pressure on yourself thus making any sexual encounter completely joyless.  Sex is at its best in a relaxed environment.  Also, you must remember that by losing your virginity, you are trading one small complication for a whole set of complications.

Sex is a very healthy thing that should be enjoyed by all.  For those who choose to abstain until their first time is special, perhaps they are choosing a higher quality of intimacy and a higher quality sexual experience altogether.  For those who are still virgins and believe that they are in a torturous limbo, RELAX.  Obsessing and stressing about losing your virginity completely ruins any experiences you might have with sex.  Not only are you NOT weird (no matter what other people say…they are a-holes) you are also very NOT alone.  It will happen someday.  Everybody gets their turn.

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I was told the day of the festivities that the bachelorette party was going to consist of some booze and some “special entertainment.”  Naturally, I assumed that I was going to be enjoying the company of a male stripper but alas, I was wrong.  The sister had hired a sex toy saleswoman to do a demonstration and host a few sexually explicit games.  I was intrigued.  I began wondering what this lady might look like.  I was afraid that we would be confronted with a prissy, 60 year-old Avon lady who simply did the sex toy gig for extra money.  However, I secretly hoped that the woman would be a tall, leather-clad babe with a husky voice and pointy torpedo boobs.  It would add to the entertainment value.  What we got left me wishing for the Avon lady.

When I saw her walk in, I thought that maybe she was a guest running late, but then I saw her carrying a bag of goodies.

“Oh no,” I thought.

She was nasty.  Weighing in at an easy 350 lbs. was the least of her unsavory appearance.  This woman was dirty.  Her hair was greasy, her clothes were filthy, and she was missing quite a few teeth.

Her demonstration was so uncomfortable to sit through.  She would show a product, a dildo for example, and say something like,

“My boyfriend uses this on me and I always c*m so hard!”  It took all of my willpower to keep from bursting into tears and crying for my mommy.  That wasn’t the worst of it.  The worst came when she pulled a tiny bottle out of her bag…

She produced a small bottle and explained that it was a liquid clitoral stimulant.  She asked the bride-to-be to go into the bathroom and apply a little to her nether regions.  My friend emerged from the bathroom, sat on the floor next to me and started gyrating.

“Oh my God,” my friend exclaimed.  “This stuff is so amazing that I might have to take advantage of one of you girls!”

She was kidding, of course, and we all laughed.  The saleswoman, however, didn’t get that it was a joke.

“Oh absolutely,” she said.  “I have people start going at it all the time in the middle of my demonstrations.  That means I’m doing a good job when you get so horny that you’ll go gay.”

At this point I was panicking.  I pressed the ring-test button on my cell phone and pretended to have an urgent phone call (corny, I know).  I literally ran out of the door and drove home as fast as I could.

What could have been a fun event turned out to be one of the most disgusting, nightmarish experiences of my life.  I refused to have sex for nearly a month afterward.  I kept imagining that woman sitting in the corner informing me that she had done a good job.

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In our “gimme gimme NOW” society, online dating can match you with several potential lovers in one simple click.  You can cover quite a lot of territory by using the internet and its matchmaking sites as tools.  In one evening one can become a member of a matchmaking site, become acquainted with at least one match, and then use the internet to check the credentials of said match.  That’s a hell of a lot more than you can accomplish by sitting in some bar in your “sexy dress.”

Women, I’m addressing you in particular!  On matchmaking sites, men outnumber women.  Is it because men are complacent and want to meet matches while sitting on the couch in their underwear?  Is it because women are more comfortable talking the ears off of their dates in person?  I won’t assume to know, but I really think you ladies need to embrace the online matchmaking site.  Not all of them are gritty, sleazy places to have inappropriate conversations.  If you are looking for inappropriate conversations and sexually charged content, there are lots of places like that, however!  There are many sites that offer different features and tools to help you get matched with a person who best suits your wants and needs.

Any sexual orientation, hobby, lifestyle, ethnicity and social class can be indulged equally on the internet by a matchmaking site.  Don’t assume that online dating is unsafe.  If you are clear-headed and cautious, you will be fine.  Take the same precautions you would take in the old fashioned matchmaking scene.  Don’t let fear keep you from something as productive and hot as the online dating scene.

Honestly, the thought of relying on family, friends, the local bar or the grocery store to find a date sounds idiotic…but that’s how people used to do it.  It’s an antiquated technique and needs to be retired as the sole means of matchmaking.  It’s not like an entire love affair happens only in cyberspace.  You DO eventually meet the matches who seem worthy (after at least Googling them, of course).  There’s no valid excuse for avoiding online dating.  Visit our directory and find a site that suits you!

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What can be considered an aphrodisiac anyway? Different cultures around the world vary greatly on what makes a man virile and a woman…well..easy. Actually, most of these things center around helping the man be a sexual He-Man while women typically don’t apply. In our Western culture, however, we do concern ourselves with making both genders horny. Even here, depending on who you ask, what constitutes as an aphrodisiac varies. Oysters, chocolate, alcohol, Barry White. While we will concern ourselves with ingestible aphrodisiacs right now, the power of Barry White should never be forgotten.

If you are confident in your sexual expertise as well as you attraction to your partner, there’s really no need to get sloppy stupid drunk for this occasion. Alcohol can certainly help relax you, but be moderate. You may also want to avoid red wine and sweet liqueurs. Red wine stains teeth and the liqueurs will give you bad breath.

Oysters are a classic go-to. Some people, however, find the thought of sucking something the consistency of a loogie out of a shell horrifying. Personally, I adore raw oysters and have done my fair share of sucking and slurping this noble mollusk. I can’t honestly say that they have ever put me in a sexual fervor. They don’t exactly get the juices going, so I wouldn’t rely on oysters as a way of getting in the mood.

Chocolate is another classic. Honestly, I think it’s an excuse made up by women to eat more chocolate. It can be served in a “sexy” way, but in the end it’s still dessert. I wouldn’t put the outcome of such an evening on something like chocolate covered strawberries….even though they are SOOOOOOOO good!

In the end, aphrodisiacs might be more of a mental boost rather than a physical one. Playful flirting during the date, touching and any other acts to build the anticipation will have you both panting more than a plate of oysters will. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t take the evening’s climactic event into consideration when choosing your dinner. Food that would give you bad breath, make you bloated, or give you gas should be avoided. Keep it clean and light. Don’t worry about being hungry later, if the sex is great you can always order in after.

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“Sex drive: A physical craving that begins in adolescence and ends at marriage.” -Robert Byrne

“Sex is the most fun you can have without smiling.” -Unknown

“I’ve tried several varieties of sex. The conventional position makes me claustrophobic and the others give me a stiff neck or lockjaw.” -Tallulah Bankhead (1903-1968)

“A woman occasionally is quite a serviceable substitute for masturbation.” -Karl Kraus (1874-1936)

“Sex is nobody’s business except the three people involved.” -Unknown

“All this fuss about sleeping together. For physical pleasure I’d sooner go to my dentist any day.” -Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966)

“Love is a grave mental disease.” -Plato (427?-348? B.C.)

“A man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her.” -Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

“Love will find a lay.” -Robert Byrne

“Marriage is not a word but a sentence.” -Unknown

“Marriage is a great institution, but I’m not ready for an institution.” -Mae West (1893-1980)

“If I ever marry it will be on a sudden impulse, as a man shoots himself.” -H.L. Mencken (1880-1956)

“A man is as young as the woman he feels.” -Variously Ascribed

“Many a man owes his success to his first wife and his second wife to his success.” -Jim Backus (1913-1989)

“It can be great fun to have an affair with a bitch.” -Louis Auchincloss

“Masturbation! The amazing availability of it!” -James Joyce (1882-1941)

“Love is not the dying moan of a distant violin-it’s the triumphant twang of a bedspring.” -S.J. Perelman (1904-1979)

“Sex is dirty only when it’s done right.” -Woody Allen

“Give a man a free hand and he’ll run it all over you.” -Mae West (1893-1980)

“The perfect lover is one who turns into a pizza at 1:00a.m.” -Charles Pierce

“It’s been so long since I made love I can’t even remember who gets tied up.” -Joan Rivers

“When a girl marries she exchanges the attentions of many for the inattention of one.” -Helen Rowland (1876-1950)

“Of all the beasts of land or sea, the wildest is woman.” -Menander (342?-291? B.C.)

“A woman talks to one man, looks at a second, and thinks of a third.” -Bhartrihari, c. 625

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Depending upon how ‘out there’ you are, you can choose anything from Victoria’s Secret, to the local ‘Lover’s Package’ with everything you can imagine, to shopping online. Online is great for the toys and such, but if you are going to be buying something that you or yours will wear, I suggest you touch it, feel it and make sure the color’s going to be just right. Nothing’s worse than getting something that puts a droop on the mood.

First thing you want to do is go snoop in your partner’s lingerie drawer. No don’t try them on. Just look at the style, colors and textures they like. Remember what they look dead sexy in? What made you really rip them off with a lot of passion? Got it? Now just before you leave the drawer, check for sizes, they’ll be in numbers and letters listed on the tags.

Ok while your still got your horney-ness on, jump in the car and cruise down to your fav lingerie shop. Just to double check, make sure you’re not showing signs of physical arousal before you talk with the sexy shop woman. She’s not for sale.

Let’s start with hair color first to get a good color match. What color is your partner’s hair? First rule of proper lingerie-ness is everyone looks totally hot in black. So if you can’t decide, go with that.

Blonds go great in pastels and pink, or in white only if they’re not snow white. If you’ve just come back from the beach then probably okay. Remember, what was the predominate color in their lingerie drawer?

Brunettes look totally stunning in primary colors, deep reds, purples and greens. Can’t get any better than that.

Redheads, ah… Blues, earth tones and anything that’s rich looking. If you’re the lucky one to have a partner with deep red hair, milky white skin and drop dead gorgeous green eyes, then melt your heart out with a deep satin green set.

Now let’s start with how much flesh they’re comfortable with exposing. Again, flash back to the times that yielded the hottest results for the both of you, what turned both of you on the most? Was it the g-string thong, the full length see-through gown, was it the texture? Did you like multiple layered outfits that took you a while to remove, or a simple rip and it’s gone.

First of all the bra is the most important part to get the right size, so that’s the one you want to make sure you get it right. Here’s the fail safe fruit gauge:

Lemons are a size A cup, for the perfect handful.

Oranges are size B cup, for beautifully proportioned bodies.

Grapefruit is a C cup, did you get training on how to properly treat them?

Cantelope Melons are D cups for absolute smoldering hot lovin. Don’t forget the underwire for support.

For guys, the underwear is the most crucial part, too tight and he’ll have to use the safety word. Too lose and it all hangs out. Just right is comfortable all the time, and especially when things are starting to pick up. Unfortunately guys underwear only comes in a size, there’s no cup letter like a bra, so you huge guys out there are just going to have to suffer with the average joe size.

Still with me? We’re not done yet. Don’t forget texture. Like silk, satin, polyester, eatable. You can never go wrong with silk if it’s in the budget. Make sure that it feels good on not only your partner’s skin, but on yours as well. Nothing worse than feeling like you’re skidding your knees across asphalt to spoil the fun.

Let’s not forget performance. How do you envision the day panning out? Are you going to give it to them in the morning and let them wear it all day? A brand new thong that’s really itchy and tight is not going to put them in the mood by the end of the day. Are you going to cut it off them? Is it something that’s soft and tender and you love seeing them in it day after day or special occasions? Do you need a matching set so your partner can have some fun with you as well? Find the edge of their comfort zone, then push it only a little bit. You want the edge to turn up the heat, but not to end up sleeping in the dog house alone because you were insensitive and self centered on your own pleasure. Remember it’s for them to get their rocks off, you’re just along for the ride.

What about accessories? Of course you can go for all the toys, if you’re into the kink, that’s for another post. What I’m talking about is being just on the other side of naughty, the fun, teasing tasteful, elegant body jewelry that turns up the heat to full once you get the whole outfit together. For example, there’s nothing better than an opera-length pearl necklace. Pearls on skin is just totally seductive, not to mention what you can do with them. They clean up beautifully too. Don’t forget the ankle bracelets for those of you who get hot just by the mere mention of a beautifully formed foot. And of course the belly button jewelery or the waist belts made of some exotic material that really accentuates the figure. Forget the nipple tassels. High heels and nothing else also goes well if shoes are a fetish.

Finally let’s talk about price. Well this is not a factor yes? I mean, nothing’s too expensive for the person that’s going to give you the best darn orgasm every 14th of February? Seriously, you could shoot your whole wad of cash on one outfit depending on where you buy it and what it’s made of. So there’s no point in buying a great set if it’s going to end up on the floor in shreds. But you could buy that and a really sexy, naughty, inexpensive set and go for several rounds of love making.

What’s standing in your way to making it a multiple orgasm event? Why not start out with a little appetizer that each of you can wear during the whole day, come home for lunch for a quickie, then bring out the next course and wear that back to work. Then come home just before dinner, change into that elegant, seductive piece and go have an evening on the town. I’ll talk about food in another blog that will blow you over the top, but for now, just make sure you have your partner so hot by the time you get to the car to go home that they’re practically sitting in your lap. What better than a perfect night of passion you’ll remember for years. Good luck, let me know how you go.

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My parents divorced when I was 10 years old because my father was caught cheating with another woman. After my father left, a lot of people started coming to my mother and telling her about all of these other affairs my father had been having over the years of their marriage. My father never wore a wedding ring because he said that it was uncomfortable, but as it turned out, he used it as a tool for dating. That’s right, he DATED these women who had no idea he had a wife or kids. He was taking them out and treating them to gifts and refused to spend money for his children to get school clothes. I resent my father very deeply for the way he pushed us aside and made us feel as unwanted as he did. “But S.C., ” you may be asking. “If you think your dad is a giant douchebag for cheating, then why do you sympathize with cheaters?” That’s a super question for those of you awake enough to ask.

Well there are a lot of things about my upbringing that make me very weary of being a hypocrite. Everybody can be a hypocrite from time to time, but I’m talking gigantic-butthole-judgemental-”I’m so much better than you are”-hypocrite. I’m related to A LOT of those and I always kind of hated them. I have always tried really hard to make myself see both sides of a story and not automatically think the worst of a person because I’ve seen it done by people I love in VERY unfair manners. I’ve got a great example of people being judgemental when they have no flipping clue. My husband and I. Yup. You see, I’m a bit of a hard ass and I can tend to be controlling. I’m not a super sweet person on the surface and I can rub some more traditional people the wrong way because I refuse to take even the slightest submissive role in my life. My husband is a very meek and likable guy. He never speaks out and he never has any conflicts unless someone else starts it. A lot of people, (most of my family and his family included) feel sorry for my husband because they see me as a nag who controls him. That’s completely not true. He’s an adult and makes his own decisions. The point I’m trying to make is that nobody knows the inner workings of a relationship except for the two people directly involved. It would be very easy for me to look at the relationships of the people around me and make simple judgements, but I try very hard not to do that. Same thing with cheaters. I want to see both sides before I start lighting my torch for the witch-hunt.

I once knew a man who had been married to his wife for 25 years. They had 3 grown kids and on the outside, he and his wife seemed to have a very comfortable relationship. A week before their actual 25th anniversary, he left his wife for another woman. The easy thing to do was to judge him as a terrible terrible man who was just a dirty scag. However, his wife had been keeping herself busy with extracurricular activities and hardly ever made time for him. Not an excuse to cheat, right? How about if this had been going on for almost their whole marriage? A woman came along, a woman his same age and they clicked. He should have left his wife before cheating if his marriage was that bad, but I cannot bring myself to believe he was a villain. He was human and he was weak. It happens to all of us.

Where I grew up, cheating was something you heard about all the time. It seemed like everybody cheated. The “other woman” was always a topic of conversation in the hen house. Sometimes I KNEW the “other woman” being talked about. No, I was never a member of some skanky slut sorority, but for someone to go with a taken guy was not an odd thing in my inner circle. I did it twice. I was not a predator seeking these guys out. One guy talked me into it and the other guy had been my friend since we were 5 years old and he wanted someone to talk to. Both surprised me. My best friend did it A LOT. It was a self esteem thing for her. She was heavy-set and she used sex as a way to make herself feel good about herself and there were a lot of guys in relationships all too willing to take advantage of her situation. Were we right? No, and we weren’t any better off for it. I have no defenses for my friend, but for myself, I never set out to get a guy who was already with someone. I liked the perks of not actually having to be in a relationship, but I wasn’t trying to hurt anybody. What else? HI FOLKS! I WAS 16 YEARS OLD! I wasn’t breaking up any future marriages. I was young and having a carefree puberty.

I just have to make myself question motive before I start pointing my finger. I’ve been cheated on once and I got over it really quickly. It wasn’t very traumatic because we were only kind of serious. The worst part was that she was young. Like ILLEGAL young. I bounced back really quickly. Perhaps I’m so sympathetic because I’ve never really been on the receiving end. But I know one thing, if my husband cheated on me with a stranger, it would be HIS fault. If he cheated on me with someone I knew, I’d go Jerry Springer on them, but with a stranger, he’s the one who would be held accountable. I’ve also got crappy self esteem and I would want him to tell me what I did to make him go to someone else. What did I do to make him wander? I just really don’t see a point in finding out the “other woman” and confronting her, especially if she’s a stranger. She doesn’t know me and doesn’t owe me anything. I wouldn’t want to take her out to dinner or anything, but I wouldn’t want to confront her. Admittedly, I’d hate what she did, but she herself would still just be a stranger and really just a symptom of something wrong with my relationship. I’m not idealistic enough to believe that women could ever share any sort of comradery like that where there is enough respect for the gender to not go after a taken man. Look at all these stupid dating shows like “The Bachelor” and “Rock of Love.” Ok, I know that these women are not necessarily the top of the barrel when it comes to classy chicks, but they fight and fight over these total schlubs.

Deep down, I’m just a pessimist. I wouldn’t call myself a realist because my first reaction is to think bad things and I have to make myself try to understand. “The other woman” is what it is. It’s not a new phenomena. There have been mistresses for as long as monogamy has been around…so forever! But should we automatically put a scarlet letter on these women and make them the town jezebel? I don’t think so. I think there should be an attempt to try to remember that some (SOME! Not all, some of these women really are terrible) of these women are weak and vulnerable and they use sex for the wrong reasons and are really confused. Now I’ll leave it to S. McDowell to tell her story and she can relay why she thinks Nathaniel Hawthorne needs to be studied by all wronged women. And she’s right.

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Are They Cheating? Get Tested.

I’ve had two men cheat on me in my life. Both times it was devastating. When it happened with the first one, I was 21 years old, and I had just defied my parent’s wishes and moved in with a guy for the first time. I had broken up with my first love, my boyfriend of 4 years only a few months prior. Matt was a rebound relationship, my boss, and 6 years older than me. In retrospect, I can see why my parents were so upset. But I was wearing rose colored glasses and was positive that we would live happily ever after, and I was having fun playing house.

Six months after we moved in together, I started to feel uneasy about Matt. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but I didn’t believe him about certain things. For one thing, he told me he was taking a computer class so he could get a new position at Microsoft, and was gone every night from 5:00 p.m. until 9:00 or 10:00 p.m., but I never saw a book or saw him do any homework. I had not met any of his friends, or his family. I found this odd as well. When I asked him about meeting his friends and family, he told me he wanted to wait, because they had all really liked his ex-girlfriend, and he wanted to give them time to get over it first.

I was feeling more and more uneasy about this every day. One evening, while Matt was at class, I decided to go through his drawer of bills and things. I was looking for his credit card bill. Anyone who has ever watched a chick flick knows that the credit card statement is always where you go to find out if somebody has been cheating on you. I felt very Meryl Streep a’la Heartburn while I looked through his drawers. I almost expected soft Carly Simon music to start playing in the background as I rifled through stacks of envelopes and papers. I was terrified he would catch me. But I found it.

There it was in black and white. Matt had not been taking a computer class. Matt had been spending his evenings in Woodinville, which was nowhere near his supposed “class” in Edmonds. Dinners, lots of dinners on his credit card statement. Dinners for two, unless he was eating fifty dollars worth of food on his own each night. At places like The Olive Garden, Tony Roma’s, and Alfie’s Pizza. Now that’s classy. At least he was taking her out in style. Movies—lots of charges from Regal Cinemas, and grocery stores in Woodinville. He had supposedly gone out of town a few weeks earlier for a football game in Pullman with his friends. I noticed on those dates that he had spent 3 nights at the Silver Cloud Inn in Woodinville. I felt like I had been punched in the stomach.

Matt had led me to believe that he had broken up with his ex girlfriend Amy because he came home to the apartment they shared and found her in bed with someone else. As a 27 year old, I now know how utterly ridiculous that sounds. When I was 20, I believed it. Suddenly, I started wondering if this story was true. I got on my computer and googled Amy’s name. Up came her name, address, and phone number. In Woodinville.

I called Matt’s cell phone. It was turned off. It was always turned off while he was in “class.” So I called Amy’s number. I got her voicemail. I left her a message, telling her I was Matt’s live-in girlfriend and asked her to please give me a call back. Within 5 minutes I had a call from Matt. “You’ve been cheating on me with Amy.” I said. He denied it and said he had just gotten out of class. I didn’t buy it. “Come home right now.” I told him.

In all my life, I had never been so angry. I paced around our 600 square foot apartment, alternately bawling my eyes out and storming around in a rage. 2 hours later, Matt walked in the door. We had a fight, me yelling and crying, and him looking me straight in the eye and denying all charges against him. I was crazy he said. He loved me he said. I was imagining things, he said. I stared at him in disbelief. Did he really take me for a total idiot? Did he really think I would just take his word for it when I had the proof, right in front of me in black and white? In my gut, I knew he was lying.

He stood across from me in the living room, denying the allegations. Calling me crazy. I started to feel a little crazy. It was almost Christmas. I picked up a cookie tin full of those little shortbread cookies and threw it at his head. I didn’t care if I took his head off. I would hide his body in an Eastern Washington wooded area and nobody would ever find it. This was my well thought out plan.

I missed Matt’s head by about 3 inches and the cookie tin exploded all over the wall. Cookie crumbs everywhere. In hindsight, I’m lucky it missed his head, but at the moment, I was really pissed off about it. I didn’t even care about the mess I had just made. Matt left. Probably on his way back to Amy’s. “Good!” I said to myself. I started gathering up his clothing. I was going to throw it off the balcony, just as I’d been taught by Rosie Perez in It Could Happen to You.

It occurred to me suddenly that I didn’t know who else he had been cheating on me with. It could be any number of people. I could have Chlamydia. Or something worse, something permanent. Sexually transmitted diseases are everywhere. I recently read that one in 4 sexually active adults had herpes. How was I going to get a new boyfriend if I had herpes? I’d have to go onto one of those online dating sites specifically for people with herpes. And I’d only slept with two people in my life. I began to weep. I abandoned my plan to throw his clothes off the balcony and went to sleep.

The next morning, Amy called me. She confirmed that she and Matt had been sleeping together and dating again, but that she had not known about me. “I guess he was playing us both.” She said. I believed her. Turns out that the way Matt had broken up with Amy had been pretty horrible, but that’s another story for another time. I thanked her for her call.

My self esteem was extremely low. I suppose that it had something to do with the way my last relationship had ended. My ex-boyfriend had not cheated on me, but he had broken up with me so that he could date somebody else, a friend of his. This was heartbreaking, and not good for my self image. Then, here was Matt, overweight, unattractive, a liar, and he didn’t want me either. If Matt didn’t want me, who would? I felt low. That’s probably why, when Matt came home a couple of days later, begging for forgiveness, I forgave. This was a mistake. I can honestly say that the year I wasted staying with Matt after this incident was the loneliest, saddest, most emotionally scarring time of my life.

Matt cheated on me for the next year before I finally got fed up and left him. I got an STD test (clean, thank God), packed up Toad, my cat, and all of my belongings, and went straight to my best friend Emma’s house. She made me a cup of tea, gave me a spare bedroom, and I got over it. Her husband gave me the best advice I received during that time, and now I am going to share it with you. When you are in a bad relationship, when there is cheating or abuse going on, it is, inevitably going to end. No matter what, you are going to have to feel that pain. That agonizing feeling that enters your heart when a relationship ends, that actual physical pain, is going to have to come eventually. So you can either deal with it now or later, but you’re going to have to deal eventually, so why not get it over with. I realized I had stayed in a relationship for far too long, just so that I could avoid that feeling. It wasn’t worth it.

Matt taught me my golden rule. Once a cheater, always a cheater. I used to think this was something that only bitter old cat ladies said, but now I say it too. Later in my life, when another man cheated on me, I left him right away. I had learned my lesson. If anything, do it for your health. Remember, when you sleep with somebody, you are sleeping with everyone they have ever slept with. And if they’re cheating on you, that STD test you took before you threw out your condoms in favor of birth control is pointless. After all, diamonds are forever, but so is herpes.

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