2008 Woodie Awards
This Week in Sex: You're probably going to get dumped for Christmas
Eryk Salvaggio
Issue date: 12/13/07 Section: Style
I hate to break it to you, eager first-years in the throng of your first passionate relationship or anyone else, for that matter: if you or your significant other are heading home for the break, the odds are stacked against you.
Temptations come from every direction: in your hometown, seeing people you know you won't be seeing again for months. There are holidays - New Year's, especially - in which parties, drinking and mistletoe hook-ups are the norm. According to a www.vault.com survey, almost one in six people cheat on their spouses at holiday office parties alone. Your partner's in another state, in the same cheating-friendly environment - and what you have is a variation on the prisoner's dilemma.
For simplicity's sake, let's call it the cheater's dilemma: If you cheat but they don't, you get the hook-up and they lose. If you don't cheat, but your partner cheats on you, they get the hook-up and you lose. If you both cheat, it's a wash. If neither of you cheat - well, you can both come back to school holding hands through your mittens while frolicking in the snow.
So how do you navigate this treacherous slope of holiday infidelity? As usual, it's a matter of communication. In the prisoner's dilemma, people are abandoned less often when they work out a rational strategy ahead of time. The same applies here: discuss your strategies. If there's a chance you're going to cheat, get it out in advance of the cheating. Talk to your partner about how they'd feel and listen to them.
The other option: break up. If the prisoner's dilemma is all-too-apt a description of your relationship, the holidays are the time to get out of jail, free. However, do the right thing - play that card before you go home, when you can still do it in person, and give them the freedom to get some mistletoe action without you - otherwise, you're just asking for coal in your stockings.
Once it's discussed, there's the little matter of simply not cheating. Secret number one in the "don't cheat" category: don't drink. Drinking exponentially increases your willingness to engage in risky sexual behavior - from cheating to having unprotected sex. Spiked eggnog may be tasty, but spending your first hours of 2008 searching for a morning-after pill while trying to figure out how to break the news to your soon-to-be-ex is a sad, sad ending to Auld Lang Sine.
Temptations come from every direction: in your hometown, seeing people you know you won't be seeing again for months. There are holidays - New Year's, especially - in which parties, drinking and mistletoe hook-ups are the norm. According to a www.vault.com survey, almost one in six people cheat on their spouses at holiday office parties alone. Your partner's in another state, in the same cheating-friendly environment - and what you have is a variation on the prisoner's dilemma.
For simplicity's sake, let's call it the cheater's dilemma: If you cheat but they don't, you get the hook-up and they lose. If you don't cheat, but your partner cheats on you, they get the hook-up and you lose. If you both cheat, it's a wash. If neither of you cheat - well, you can both come back to school holding hands through your mittens while frolicking in the snow.
So how do you navigate this treacherous slope of holiday infidelity? As usual, it's a matter of communication. In the prisoner's dilemma, people are abandoned less often when they work out a rational strategy ahead of time. The same applies here: discuss your strategies. If there's a chance you're going to cheat, get it out in advance of the cheating. Talk to your partner about how they'd feel and listen to them.
The other option: break up. If the prisoner's dilemma is all-too-apt a description of your relationship, the holidays are the time to get out of jail, free. However, do the right thing - play that card before you go home, when you can still do it in person, and give them the freedom to get some mistletoe action without you - otherwise, you're just asking for coal in your stockings.
Once it's discussed, there's the little matter of simply not cheating. Secret number one in the "don't cheat" category: don't drink. Drinking exponentially increases your willingness to engage in risky sexual behavior - from cheating to having unprotected sex. Spiked eggnog may be tasty, but spending your first hours of 2008 searching for a morning-after pill while trying to figure out how to break the news to your soon-to-be-ex is a sad, sad ending to Auld Lang Sine.
Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1
Kim
posted 12/17/07 @ 3:42 PM EST
Man, you guys really know how to make a good relationship sound like it's bound for failure. Don't forget there are people out there who are loyal and don't live in separate states, or even towns. (Continued…)
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