I just got off the phone with a friend. She's the type of girl who's really shy and self-conscious. She doesn't have a very good opinion of herself most of the time. She's a senior in high school this year in the town I just moved away from to go to college.
A couple weeks ago, she was really feeling happy. She had just gotten a new job that was challenging and paid well, and one of the college students working there asked her on a date her first day there! Things seemed to progress well, and for a couple weeks she thought that life couldn't be better.
Today he wasn't at work. She went to his house to see if he was there. Nobody answered the door, so she let herself in. She found the guy in his bed with another girl. And he had the balls to tell her that he "never said they wouldn't see other people."
Sometimes I'm just really disappointed in the human race. I think my usual sunny optimism is broken for a while. Any advice on what I should do? I'm going back to Corvallis this weekend to visit my family and friends (notably my girlfriend, who is the cheatee's best friend). So, we'll get to hang out with her for a while.
Edit: title change.
[ October 24, 2003, 12:06 PM: Message edited by: Nato ]
Posted by prolixshore (Member # 4496) on :
I never understood the kind of dating where you could see other people. It just never made much sense to me. I hate when people do stuff like that.
--ApostleRadio
Posted by Nato (Member # 1448) on :
Well, she was pretty sure it wasn't that sort of thing.
I assumed that pretty much all dating where you're going out regularly was exclusive. And I'm really sad to find that I was wrong.
Posted by Xavier (Member # 405) on :
I hate to play the Devil's advocate, but if they had only been casually dating for two weeks, and then he didn't necessarily do anything wrong.
If they were somewhat seriously together though (either directly spoken or implied), then what he did makes him a total dirt bag.
Posted by Xavier (Member # 405) on :
(two posts while I was typing)
Is it possible that there was a misunderstanding then? Did she think it was more serious than it was?
I don't have sex very often (okay, almost never), but I have been on kissing terms with two girls at one time. As long as all parties involved understand that the relationship isn't serious than I don't see anything wrong with this.
I must admit though that having sex with one person while dating another is wrong pretty much anytime. I wonder why I'm still arguing this side...
Posted by Frisco (Member # 3765) on :
A couple things.
After only two weeks, one should not assume the relationship to be exclusive.
After only two weeks, one should not just "let herself in" to someone's house.
Dating multiple people is something that everyone knows happens, but nobody wants to think about. Especially in college. It's all part of looking for the right person. Not all people do it, but some people don't look at dating as an "all-or-nothing" thing.
Posted by Nato (Member # 1448) on :
She was saying, "I should have known. He was just so smooth. He must have done this a dozen times before," but thinking that seems just to make it hurt even more.
I know I would never have expected it. An awful first relationship, to be sure.
Posted by Xavier (Member # 405) on :
Yeah, what Frisco said. You can be having a good time hanging out with one person, and then you meet someone else. Should you break up with the first one and start dating the second one? Should you ignore the second one until you are sure that the first one isn't the one?
No, you date them both until one is serious. Its not fair to reject either of them when you know so little about them. Now for most, sex implies that the relationship is serious, but this is not the case for everyone.
I'm not sure if this applies to her particular situation though. Some relationships can be quite serious after two weeks. How often were they together during this time? If it was nearly every day then I can see where she would make assumptions, but if it was just a couple times a week then she jumped the gun a bit.
I hope that your friend isn't too hurt by these events in any event.
Edit: all better now
[ October 24, 2003, 03:36 AM: Message edited by: Xavier ]
Posted by Xavier (Member # 405) on :
Also, was he calling her his girlfriend?
If so, then nevermind all I've said, and he's scum (or at least weak ). If not, then thats signifigant. He wasn't cheating on anyone if she wasn't his girlfriend.
Posted by Nato (Member # 1448) on :
Sister?
Well, what happened happened. I don't know a whole lot about it. The guy sounds like scum to me, but I can't say he ever said he wouldn't do something like this.
Edit: does giving her presents count for anything?
Anyways my friend feels awful. Is there anything I can do to help her get back some sense of self-worth?
[ October 24, 2003, 03:17 AM: Message edited by: Nato ]
Posted by Xavier (Member # 405) on :
Sorry, that would be a case of thread cross-contamination. I was responding to Nate's thread at the same time. Nate/Nato, I'm not suprised my brain screwed up. I hope I didn't say anything about cheating or sex on that thread .
I was opening this thread for the purposes of editing that out before you caught it, but too late now .
Anyway, what kind of gift? Stuffed-animal or CDs wouldn't mean anything, but something more signifigant like jewelry would.
Posted by suntranafs (Member # 3318) on :
Interesting topic. I was gonna say new age dating, give the guy a chance, sex lib., and all that, then decided to say nothing cause the girl might have had her feelings hurt real bad. Now after hearing a few people, on the subject I say GRRRRRRRRRRRR G** **** unfaithful, lying, cowardly, worthless a-hole. If he was new age and polygamistic, than he should have said so before. Though I suppose you might have to give him the benefit of the doubt in a major way and say that he just hadn't got the chance, but Posted by Xavier (Member # 405) on :
Well, as bad as she feels now, I think that in time it won't be a big deal. Its an awful way to end your first dating experience.
I hope she doesn't get too jaded, but it might actually be a good thing for her to be a bit less trusting. There are a lot of jerks out there.
I'd take her out for ice-cream or bowling or something, and just have a good time. Get her to laugh .
Posted by esl (Member # 3143) on :
Maybe she'd laugh if you told her Xavier thought she was your sister.
Posted by Nato (Member # 1448) on :
Ah, 'twas a pair of shoes.
I don't know. I sure didn't expect it. She was so happy for a few weeks. You know, "somebody finally likes me!" So happy that she missed all the warning signs and thought the best. She still has to see the guy at work every day, so I hope she can handle that.
I just got the impression that he was basically using her for some fun at her expense.
Edit: I'll see what she thinks about that, esl. And she doesn't like bowling, but I'll see what I can do about some frozen yogurt.
[ October 24, 2003, 03:32 AM: Message edited by: Nato ]
Posted by Xavier (Member # 405) on :
It could well be that he is these things, but from what we've been told, he might not have been in a relationship to be faithful to, and when did he lie?
He hurt her, and at the very least he was inconsiderate of her feelings, but I'm not ready to crucify him with what we know so far.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
"I assumed that pretty much all dating where you're going out regularly was exclusive."
Why would someone ever assume this? I mean, just speaking for myself, when I was DATING, I DATED.
I regularly went out with three or four different women a month, and frequently dated three or four different women in a WEEK. And as I got older, I even had sex on some -- but not all -- of these dates.
No exclusivity is implied in a date. Period. It's just a date. It's not an engagement. It's not some form of proto-committment, or a trial run at marriage; it's a fun way to get out with somebody, do something enjoyable, and see if you like someone enough to see them again.
It's a shame the guy in question didn't make sure she understood the situation, but he's not a slimeball UNLESS he deliberately led her to believe otherwise.
The subject line of this thread is "Cheating," but it's inappropriate; there can be no cheating where there are no promises and no implied committments.
----
As a side note: if I'd been dating some girl for all of two weeks, I would be LIVID if she felt free, for whatever reason, to let herself into my house.
[ October 24, 2003, 10:09 AM: Message edited by: TomDavidson ]
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Orignally posted by TomDavidson I regularly went out with three or four different women a month, and frequently dated three or four different women in a WEEK. And as I got older, I even had sex on some -- but not all -- of these dates.
This has very little to do with the subject of this thread, but I'd just like to say this to Tom on behalf of all the losers in love like myself out in the world: Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
Okay Tom -- out of curiousity --
What if you REVERSED the roles? What if YOU had been dating some girl for two weeks, and then went to her house and found her in bed with another man? Would you have the same feelings/expectations as when it is the girl finding the guy in bed?
Posted by Anna (Member # 2582) on :
I think it's all about honesty. You can't be on a "dating process" with two persons without these persons being informed from that. This is cheating. It shows you don't care about the other person's feelings, and that includes the second girl, the one with who the guy was when your friend surprised him. Honesty is the most important thing in human relationship, not only love affairs.
Posted by Nato (Member # 1448) on :
I guess I'm a little naive. Or very naive. I haven't really gone on many dates in my time. Except for being in an exclusive relationship for the last year. I suppose I thought everybody was like me or something.
I don't know to what degree this guy is guilty of breaking a committment. He's at least guilty of making somebody think he was committed to her. Or letting her believe that.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
I'm still confused. How is seeing two people at once dishonest?
The "dating process" isn't a PROCESS. It's a DATE.
Maybe I'm running into cultural barriers here because there are a lot of Mormons on this site, and I know dating is a much more serious thing in that culture -- but surely the only dismay you might feel to discover that the person you saw two days ago is also seeing somebody else is that you aren't so mind-blowingly wonderful that he can't even THINK of anyone else without disappointment. RIght?
Posted by Anna (Member # 2582) on :
I'm not Mormon. As a matter of act I don't have any religion and have been know as a atheist in the past. But I still think that honesty is important. You see someone, you care more for someone else, you tell. Easy ! I think the problem comes from you dates system. Here, to have a story of love with someone, you have to tell the word. Love. Nothing is engaged before that, before it's just friendship so you don't wait anything from the person, and after... Well, after, no cheating.
Posted by Anna (Member # 2582) on :
Oh, I forgot : there is the body language too. You take someone's hand, and it's more than friendship. Same thing with kissing (and of course having sex !)
Posted by Nato (Member # 1448) on :
I wouldn't say it's dishonest if everybody involved knows that it's not exclusive. But she didn't expect that. That's probably partly because she's never gone out with somebody before, so her only experience with romance was "liking" people who didn't reciprocate. So, when this guy asked her out, she was surprised and started thinking "Whoa. I might be worthy of somebody wanting me after all!"
So, yes, I suppose the primary disappointment she felt was disappointment in herself. But it doesn't really make me feel any better about how he led her to believe it was exclusive.
And I wouldn't say Mormons are the only ones to take dating more seriously than you do.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
I didn't say Mormons were the ONLY ones who took it more seriously. I just know for a fact that Mormons, as a group, almost universally take dating more seriously than I do.
Keep in mind that I consider the purposes of dating to be two-fold:
1) To enjoy an activity in someone else's company. 2) To decide if you like someone enough to experiment with a committed relationship to them.
Posted by Papa Moose (Member # 1992) on :
I think this is like trying to declare a just verdict in a court case where all you've seen are the newspaper headlines. Clearly the two sides of the story are vastly different, and while with all things being equal I'll take the Hatracker's side over the non-Hatracker, I don't think that's legitimate this time.
If the guy were me, then it's not Nato's friend that was being cheated on; rather, if anyone, it would be the woman the guy was sleeping with. Regular dating, in the absence of a clarification discussion, does not mean exclusivity. Whether or not it implies it is another question, but I don't think there's any guarantee. Sleeping together, however, in the absence of a clarification discussion, does mean exclusivity to me. But since I never slept with anyone before getting married, that point is rather moot in my book -- the wedding ceremony was already a pretty good indication of exclusivity, even if we hadn't discussed it beforehand.
I laughed a little at Tom's post --
quote:I even had sex on some -- but not all -- of these dates.
Since the term "date" can refer to the person as well as the event, it was a little more graphic than I needed it to be.
I wouldn't necessarily say I take dating that seriously, but I sure take sex that seriously. A key factor in a good date (for me) is the ability and desire to communicate effectively.
Oh, and the kissing.
--Pop
Posted by Sweet William (Member # 5212) on :
I mostly agree with Tom (except that I don't believe in extramarital sex).
Dating is dating. Unless they've discussed and agreed upon exclusivity, both are absolutely free to date as many people as they want.
The guy was not a jerk or lame or anything else just for DATING another girl. His getting intimate with the other girl is an entirely different matter. IMHO, it was a sin, but it still was, frankly, none of your friend's business.
Oh yeah, and your friend "letting" herself into his house? In what alternate universe is that okay? When I visit family members, I do not enter their house without knocking first. If they don't answer, I don't go in. Period. That's just common courtesy.
In helping her self esteem....well just encourage her to keep dating. She can clearly attract dates. She had an important learning experience. Tell her not to get so proprietary so soon next time.
Posted by Mrs.M (Member # 2943) on :
It sounds like this poor girl needs some dating guidelines pronto.
To repeat a question that has already been asked, why did she think they were exclusive? Did she just assume that they were? Two weeks is a pretty short amount of time to jump to exclusivity, especially for a high school girl. Also, never assume that you're exclusive or not.
Dating for two weeks is not a relationship, btw.
Never, ever go over to someone else's house unannounced and let yourself in if they don't answer the door. That's just rude.
And talk about a tendency to smother. I would never want anyone I was dating for only two weeks to come to my house unannounced. I am a committment-shy person and didn't even like when boyfriends called me every day. This girl is very young and she needs to learn to take it slow.
I'm sorry she got her heart broken, but maybe this experience will help her to be a bit wiser next time.
Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
Speaking from the opinion someone who has never dated, the impression of 'dating' that I get from general observation (this just sounds worse and worse as I go on) is that in my secondary school society, if you date someone, it implies you are "together", and exclusively together until you are no longer dating.
Obviously, there are two different dating cultures. or two different interpretations of the world of dating. This seems to be a problem... maybe we should looking 'dating' up in the dictionary or something, and use another word for whichever meaning doesn't have a word yet, because a lot of people are going to be very upset and confused unless this is made clear.
Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
Merriam-Webster online:
transitive senses 4 : to make or have a date with
intransitive senses 4 : to go out on usually romantic dates
Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
The more I think about this, the more I agree with Pape Moose. If there was anyone at all misled by the whole scenario, it would be the girl he was in bed with. By sleeping with her, he is implying it is a serious relationship -- so he "cheated" on her by dating this other gal to begin with.
UNLESS, of course, they (he and the girl in bed with him) already had open communication and an understanding that he was seeing other people.
I don't take sex that lightly, but I know of many people who do.
Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
No help from the dictionary then... those definitions cover both interpretations.
When (sometime in the far distant future) I start dating, I'll have to ask the person I am dating to define "dating" so we're both clear on that point...
Posted by Nato (Member # 1448) on :
I guess you could say there's a difference between "dating" and being "in a relationship?"
I'll talk to her this weekend. I think she's going to be fine, and in the long run view it as sort of a learning experience.
I doubt she'll be walking into people's houses much in the future (and even so, I think that he somehow indicated that this was okay.) It'll probably end up helping her in the future because she'll probably have future dates define their exclusivity more clearly.
Posted by Megachirops (Member # 4325) on :
I'm with Xavier, Eddie, Tom, Moose, and Mrs.M on this one. I think the sex may have been a sign that he was cheating on the other girl, or it may not. It depends on what sex means to them and what they had communicated to each other. But unless he communicated to your friend that he wanted to date exclusively, or that he loved her, I see no reason why she should have assumed that they had an exclusive relationship.
Several people on this thread seem to think it was his responsibility to inform her that dating did not imply committment to her. His is the standard definition of dating, so I disagree. If she had an alternative definition of dating, it was her job to communicate it to him.
(I would say, though, that the standard definition of sex is that it implies committment, and so if he had not agreed with the girl he was sleeping with that theirs was not an exlusive relationship, he was cheating on her. Similarly, the standard definition of romantic love implies exclusivity, and so if he told your friend that he loved her, then he was cheating on her. Unlike Anna, I don't think holding hands or hugging implies exclusivity. Of course, it's always better to comminicate rather than rely on assumptions, but, sadly, this communication doesn't always take place.)
Posted by Danzig (Member # 4704) on :
I do not think that the standard of dating lays the onus on her to ask. That is a standard, but not the only. Of course, the other main standard is that it is. I would say that the best course of action is to say whether or not you expect exclusive dating. I do, but I will be certain to make that clear rather than assuming.
Of course, if this guy was having sex with the other girl, then the odds are that he is just a jerk. Call me old fashioned, but I believe that if you do not practice monogamy then you should practice serial monogamy, and to do otherwise without consent is the act of a horrible person.
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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). If not, then thats signifigant. He wasn't cheating on anyone if she wasn't his girlfriend.
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.![[Mad]](mad.gif)
![[Grumble]](graemlins/grumble.gif)
If he was new age and polygamistic, than he should have said so before. Though I suppose you might have to give him the benefit of the doubt in a major way and say that he just hadn't got the chance, but ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
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