Cheater, cheater, pumpkin eater

Last week I proved to myself that I do have the willpower to not cheat.

I know it's awful to admit that before then I was unsure if I had the ability to stop myself, but I've never been one to have relationships since I've been at ECU. I have always been able to do what I've wanted - self control and worries about cheating have never been issues that I concerned myself with until recently.

Now that I'm a senior and I have found my first "real" college boyfriend, it seems that the majority of my male friends are doing everything in their power to turn me to the dark side.

It all started with suggestive flirting, and I didn't think anything of it - I'm pretty good at laughing things off and taking them in stride. I've always been a flirt, and I figured old habits die hard. So when I started being asked if I ever would cheat, I just giggled and rolled my eyes. I didn't take this question seriously and apparently I should have.

I was with my friend, who we'll call the Texan, at his apartment watching "South Park" with his roomies. All of a sudden I get a text instructing me to go to his room. Being the Curious Connie that I am, I blindly followed these instructions. I had no reason to think that anything out of the ordinary was going to take place until he shut the door behind me. And sure enough, he grabbed me by the arms, spun me around and proceeded to try to lay me on his bed and kiss me.

I felt so awkward. Any other time I would have jumped his bones then and there, but my brain put on the breaks. No matter how hard the little devil on my shoulder was pushing me to go for it, I couldn't!

After I explained my stance on the situation, he just said, "Boyfriends suck," and we returned to the living room.

Friends like the Texan make it very hard to maintain friendships when you're dating someone else. It's one thing to flirt and know that nothing is ever going to come of the comments, but to try to start the motions of cheating is wrong.

Not only did he overstep his bounds, but he made me very conflicted. I didn't know if I should tell my boyfriend or not - I didn't want him saying he didn't want me to hang out with the Texan. For the past year, I have spent nearly every day with the Texan, so to lose a friendship with him would be devastating - he's been around longer than my boyfriend! And I know that the Texan would never take things any farther than I wanted, but how do you explain to your partner that this person who is actively trying to have sex with you is actually a safe friend - it sounds very contradictory. Not to mention, I don't think that I would want my boyfriend spending any large amounts of time with a girl I knew wanted his peen.

So when enough is enough, what do you do?

Remember that trust is one of the most important aspects of a relationship. You need to tell your partner what happened, no matter how scared you may be of his reaction. If you don't tell him soon after it happens, he may think that you have something to hide. And goodness forbid that he finds out from someone else, because then it really looks fishy.

Be sure to stick to your guns with your tempter. Make sure he knows that the seduction attacks have to stop. I hate to say that flirting is cheating's dirty cousin, but it is and if your tempter is serious about having sex with you while you're in a relationship you should probably stop any kind of interaction that could be mistaken as anything but platonic. If he doesn't end the inappropriateness, then unfortunately you need to end the friendship. A friendship is based on mutual respect, and that includes respect for any relationship that you decide to enter.

Cheating is abhorrent - there is no excuse for it. So if you happen to be on the fence about whether you want to indulge in a little creepin' you should consult the Golden Rule. If you wouldn't like being cheated on, then you probably shouldn't cheat on someone else. Karma, as we all know, is a mean lady and she doesn't forget. She may not get you back now, but 10 years down the road you may find that the person whom you thought was your one and only is your payback for cheating now. So if you can't handle it, then get out of your relationship - there is nothing wrong with being honest with yourself and breaking up with someone, but there is something wrong with lying.

And more importantly than the emotional damage that you could cause to someone whom you've cheated on, you need to consider the health risks. To potentially bring life-threatening illnesses to an innocent person is detestable. A bacterial infection is embarrassing and he is going to get madder at you for not only cheating but also bringing something home. But if you were to give him a viral infection, you would have altered his life completely when the only choice in the matter he made was to be with you. Not a fair trade at all.

Just do yourself and everyone else a favor, don't enter a relationship unless you're serious about the commitment. Nothing good ever comes out of cheating and you don't want to end up being the liar with your pants on fire!

This writer can be contacted at opinion@theeastcarolinian.com.