climbing up on solsbury hill

I don't believe in monogamy.

That's not to say that I don't believe it exists, but rather I don't believe it works.

This is not to excuse cheating by any means. Cheating is a cowardly, dirty act and shouldn't be excused under any, ANY circumstances. I don't care how horrible your significant other is, break it off before you stoop low enough to cheat.

I don't believe in monogamy because people lie. More to themselves, which is probably more dangerous.

People lie to themselves that they're happy, satisfied. They lie and tell themselves that hey, it's okay to settle.

For awhile now, I have been surrounded with hockey players from the NHL and various other pro, semi pro and minor leagues. Hockey players can be great friends that will always make you laugh, but as trusted significant others, there's probably no worse scum out there.

I hate to generalize. But it's hard not to, when it's all I see day in and day out. There may be a few good--truly good--guys buried in the boondocks of the hockey world. But until I meet them, I'm entitled to generalize. I've seen enough to earn the right to.

Guys that you think are good can fool you. I've had some fantastic, intelligent conversations with ones that I thought had good hearts, a good head on their shoulders, only to have them come to me the next day and let me know that a newspaper might be publishing a sexually explicit photo of him and 3 other women in a comprimising position, taken the night before and please not to let his wife see it.

These men have wives. Kids. Families.

And they lie.

It's a little unnerving that so many of the wives know about the infidelities and hang around anyway, for the money. Almost every married NHLer has a pre-nup clause where the wife gets a few million if he's caught cheating. A few extra million if they have kids.

I'm no sap. I'm not even a romantic. But I've gotta feel something if I'm going to stick around--and that feeling has nothing to do with money or gold or luxury cars.

Then again, the people you choose to hang out with are a reflection of yourself. A guy who is no damn good isn't going to have a great woman at his side. he's going to have his female equal.

Being in that world jaded me.

People lie.

And yeah, maybe it's worth the try anyway. But to me, it isn't. I'm not going to jump off a cliff if I know my parachute isn't going to open.

It can be even simpler. The girl that falls in love with a guy she's been dating for 2 weeks. She's lying to herself, and to him. But hey, lying to yourself in that case is better than sitting down and trying to figure out why you form attachments so suddenly, almost desperately.

Because nobody wants to think about that. That's not pleasant. It's much happier to smack the "love at first sight" label on it than try to figure out what the hell is making you lie to yourself.

The girl that "chooses" to be single because there's no prospects right now. She's lying to herself. She's not choosing to be single--she's being forced to be single, and it drives her so nuts that she lies and pretends it's voluntary.

People lie. And until they stop, monogamy, relationships, trust isn't going to work.

I don't believe in forever, because I've never seen it. And if you
do believe in forever without ever having witnessed or experienced it, then guess what?

You're lying.