When is cheating not actually cheating?

When is cheating not actually cheating? Depends who you ask, I guess.

According to a gal-friend of mine, when the affair you're having is with a member of the same sex, it doesn't actually count. Apparently, her definition of cheating is as wishy-washy as...... err..... Bill Clinton's definition of "sexual relations."

Simply put, her argument was that since men and women have different body parts, neither her boyfriend nor her lover had reason to be jealous of the other, as they weren't even playing the same game (though they were competing for the same prize). Each was giving her ... something different. Bananas to oranges, as it were.

If it was only about the physical act itself, perhaps my friend would have been able to accept that he was ill-equipped to compete for 100% of his girlfriend's attention, when it was clear that she was searching for more than he was genetically able to provide.

But "cheating" can well be defined to include much more than simply a physical affair -- for instance, another friend laments that her boyfriend's mistress is not another woman, but his weekly football on tv or down to the pub with friends.

But there is one common thread -- the emotional response that each of these actions generates is rarely about the nature of the action itself, but is usually about the way that action makes the other person feel.

After all, if your partner is consistently putting something or someone else ahead of your relationship, the natural reaction is to feel hurt, rejected or taken for granted, which is then outwardly manifested as jealousy or anger.

Not a pleasant situation to be in. But if you're unable to suck it up and go about your own life (and really, if you're living separate lives, there's no point in continuing with the relationship), then what do you do?

Every person can and should have their own set of friends and activities that they participate in separate and apart from their significant other, but time spent with those friends or on those activities should never come at the expense of quality time spent together.

it's all about priorities. If you truly love someone, selfishness must get left at the door, and both parties must compromise in order to ensure that their partner feels loved, wanted and valuable.

If she is giving up her yoga class, it's only fair that you give up your football matches on tv. Because if one partner is consistently giving 110% and receiving little to nothing in return, he or she will eventually feel resentful, angry, and possibly even used.

So when two people just can't seem to get it together, when do they reach the point where enough is enough?

Never...

In day to day reality, though, every person are different, as is every person's threshold of tolerance for unpleasant situations. Each person sees infidelity (be it with a man or a woman) differently. Some knowing that their partner is cheating behing their back, still chooses to close one eye.

But no matter what your breaking point, when your partner is no longer able or willing to make you a top priority in his or her life, then self-esteem and self-respect demand that you value yourself enough to recognize that you deserve better.

With heart..

Love, I reckon is not commerce. So conceivably, sincerity and truthfulness may not always fetch the prize they are worth. No amount of heart will win the girl over if she's plain not interested, and we can see this in the quite established pattern of women falling head over heels for cads.

Nevertheless, while love is neither sufficient nor even necessary condition for wooing with success, it sure makes one as convincing as one will ever be. Besides, women are such a bother at times. For a woman, being driven appeals to her greed for special pampering beyond the level of the mundance. In a more romantic age, being chauffeured is the equivalent of having a horse-driven coach and footman in attendance. And only the ones you sincerely, truely fancy, are ever worth the trouble.

Learning to look ahead again

If we were to invent a time machine, I would want to see what it was like in Africa, 100,000 years ago when our species was just born. If you have been to the Serengeti, you know how impressive the variety and abundance of animals are, even today. A hundred millennia ago, the diversity and concentration would have been far greater. In that context, the small groups of naked apes who were our ancestors would not have been very impressive. After all, there weren't many of us, we weren't very big, fast or strong, nor was our vision, smell or hearing very acute.

But we did have a special advantage - the most complex brain ever known. That brain compensated for our lack of sensory and physical prowess, conferring a massive memory, curiosity and inventiveness. And one of that brain's inventions was the concept of a future. Our ancestors recognized that they could shape that future by making deliberate choices in the present. Foresight was the great leg up that enabled our species not only to survive but to flourish. We are now the dominant species on the planet, the most numerous mammal in the world and so powerful that we are affecting the biological, physical and chemical makeup of the biosphere

And that is why climate change has become a major issue. It is astounding to me that today, with all the increased brainpower to give us greater predictive powers, we no longer use foresight as our forebearers did. For decades now, the leading scientists of the world have been telling us that we are on a dangerous path, blah blah blah and that we are compromising the air, water, soil and energy by our activities, and that we are undermining the diverse creatures that make this planet habitable by cleansing, capturing, replenishing and creating air, water, energy and soil.

In short, we are upsetting the atmosphere upon which all life depends.

We saw, when Katrina, the consequences of ignoring foresight. Scientists had warned of such a catastrophe for years. Even when the hurricane was forming, experts gave warning days ahead of landfall and evacuation orders were given more than 24 hours before. Yet the richest, most powerful and technologically advanced nation in the world failed to act on the warnings and we all witnessed the disastrous results. What is it going to take to return to the strategy for survival that worked so well for 100,000 years?

The terrible part of this looming catastrophe is that people have been working on solutions for years and have developed concrete steps to massively reduce our energy use, while stimulating whole new industries and technologies that are more efficient and affordable. And that all great user of oil like the united states, china, india can all reduce its oil needs by at least 50 per cent while saving money and halting its dependence on foreign energy.

Detractors often point to the variability of analytic models and the lack of absolute certainty. Well, foresight was never absolutely certain. If the sandwich on the table in front of you has even a 10 per cent chance of having food poisoning, would you eat it? I know I wouldn't.

Yet here we are playing Russian roulette with features of the planet's atmosphere that will profoundly impact generations to come. How long are we willing to gamble? It's time to take back the critical faculty for survival - foresight - and begin to act as our ancestors did to get us here in the first place.