I was having a conversation with someone about what it means to be loyal or faithful to their significant other. I think that when we are happy in a relationship, there's no need to stray. It all depends on the kind of relationship one has of course. I mean, there's people out there who have open relationships and they allow for their other half to mess around. Then there's also swingers and such. But we were talking about what society calls a "normal" relationship or monogamous. Well, this person thinks that when people get married, they tend to stray more than when they are in a committed relationship. It's like that little paper just makes people crazy or something. When one is in a relationship, it's because they want to be in it. When the law tells us that we have to be in that relationship because we signed a paper, then all of a sudden people feel trapped . I don't think all this is necessarily true for everyone. There's all types of people. And some are more loyal than others no matter what their status is.
According to another well known and trusted source of mine, we are all capable of straying no matter what the status is because we, as humans, can't help it. What differs from us and animals is our education. Society has trained us to believe we are meant to be monogamous. We are pretty well convinced that this is the best way to go about it and really, it sort of is. We share finances and family together. We develop comfort and that person becomes too familiar so it is hard to just discard it. But when our instincts kick in, we really are just animals. Some people think it's worth the risk. Sex, after all, feels damn good.
We differ from animals because it's what has been instilled in us and we don't want to hurt or lose those we love and still enjoy the company of.
If only we could all be free and love whoever we want at any time and just be happy and not make a big deal. Could we really?
Unfortunately, we can't, at least not all of us. Being human is complicated. We have jealousy issues. Most of us are just born that way. And even if we could put jealousy aside, we have other issues like property and ownership of things we share together. If we were to love freely and not care, fine, but what about our stuff? What if person number 3 wants in on stuff that cost us work and money and was once shared by the immense monogamous love we once felt. It's not easy to let go just like that. It'd be awesome if we could all just share right? Each other and our stuff. But we're not built that way. Strange how sharing can drive us up the wall. Fear of losing some or all of the attention. I think even people that are ok with sharing themselves come to a point in the relationship when they don't want to do it anymore. Who knows.
So, thinking about all this, I realized that we will, for the most part, be faithful. It's what we are taught to do. It's what we know is the right thing to do. Do we want to be faithful all the time? Yes, that's what we are aiming for. Although, we will get urges or temptations every now and then, we strive to be perfect human beings. So can we be faithful? Absolutely. Can we be faithful in our minds 100% for the rest of our lives? I don't think so. It just is what it is.
PS. There's probably people reading this already feeling paranoid and that tickles me a bit.
