Flawed Fidelity

The question of fidelity often intrigues me. If one of your friends came to you and said that their other half has been unfaithful, in what form do you immediately think that the act of unfaithfulness has taken place? I will wager than in the vast majority of cases you will think that him or her has slept with someone else. I am perplexed by how people become so upset if the form of infidelity is the fact that someone has slept with someone else. It may be a one-off drunken occurrence and the name of the other party was not even known or most likely has now been forgotten. Certainly from my perspective an act of physical infidelity is meaningless – it has no resonance with me in terms of forming a bond with the other person. It is purely an act by which we draw them into our web or most likely for the purposes of drawing a reaction from you because we know, for some reason, you get most upset about the fact we engaged in physical contact with another person even though it may not be repeated and meant nothing to us. The act itself rarely generates any pleasure for us, it is the reactions that arise from it that are the aim. Similarly, if one spends time with another member of the opposite sex, that also seems to generate a reaction too. Why is that? You remark about having friends (some of whom are of the opposite sex) so why can we not do so and why must you become so agitated when we explain we are going to lunch with that person or attending a show with him or her? Is it perhaps the fact we are not spending the time with you since we are spending time with another? Is it not borne out of your jealousy and insecurity, rather than anything we have done that is deemed to be morally reprehensible? Now, I can comprehend that you feel distraught should your partner be sharing their hopes, fears and deepest secrets with someone else. I am aware from extensive studying of other people that an individual feels most betrayed when they know their partner has been engaging in soul-searching with another person, conveying their deepest feelings and heart felt concerns. Oddly enough, you need not be concerned about me doing that, even though I am spending time with someone else. I know from the things that you have said to me that the emotional connection you feel with someone trumps everything else. If you regard that emotional connection being shared between you and someone else or even diverted away from you to that other person, then quite a reaction indeed arises from you. Yet, do you not demonstrate hypocrisy in adopting this attitude? I know for a fact (since I have listened in on your conversations) that you talk about everything to your sister and two of your friends. Is that not sharing or diverting your emotional connection with others instead of me? In fact, you divulge all of the details in lengthy analytical discussions. I may spend time with other women but I tell you this, I do not go into the intricacies of how I feel. I do not discuss what might trouble me or what is gnawing at my mind. It is true. I am too busy charming them by showing off about my achievements, my promotion, my wealth and my urbane charm. I am engaging in telling them ultimately banal and ephemeral things about me in order to draw them closer to me to extract fuel from them. I am listening to their intimate details in order to use them against that person at a later date. I do not pour out the contents of my heart to this individual, I have no need to and indeed I am not wired this way. Thus, your irate reactions when you learn I have been for a coffee with a new neighbour are misplaced. It is I who has the basis for complaining about you spending two hours on the telephone to your friend poring over our relationship in detail. Interestingly, should you learn that I had been spotted kissing some random lady in a bar late at night in a transient and brief liaison you hit the roof.
If you analysed my behaviour you might actually regard it in a different light. Is spending time with a member of the opposite sex being unfaithful? We have an enjoyable time, laugh and joke, yet do not indulge in any physical interaction nor sharing of secrets. The physical liaisons are meaningless too save for the reaction we generate from gaining an admirer (and sometimes we are not ultimately bothered about that) and more usually about your massive emotional response to learning of our one night stand with person unnamed.
Now, I do not want you to change, heavens no. If you did then I would lose so much fuel by you not reacting to these alleged acts of infidelity but you may like to consider, having read my observations on our behaviour from my point of view, whether it really is the sin you consider it to be.