One guy on r/adultery shared his recent adventure:
I’ve opined before that adultery is a zero-sum game. Euphoria is inevitably replaced with heartbreak. It could be private or it could be spectacularly public, but the end game is usually the same.
Which brings me to my latest disappointment. We found each other on Reddit, against all odds. She, 56, answered my (63) post in r/BusinessTravelAffairs for someone in San Diego. We hit it off, big time. Our texts got more and more flirty, then downright salacious. Strategic body shots were exchanged. Fantasies about what we would do when we met were shared.
After nearly a month of messages, we met. She said she was going to show me a dive bar and she delivered. What started off so promising collapsed in on itself. The online chemistry didn’t work in person. She said she felt very comfortable with me. I was modestly attracted to her. If she’d shown more enthusiasm, I could have easily matched it. We talked about meeting again the next night.
But the next day I got the message I was expecting. She wasn’t going to meet. There are no hard feelings; it just wasn’t meant to be. But the disappointment is devastating. To put so much hope into the prospect and then sit and watch it die.
So I should take my own advice and win by not playing, but this game is an addiction. I’m already looking for someone for my next trip at the end of the month. WTF is wrong with me?
Dude, it’s the same for so many of us.
Best response:
“This hurts because you allowed yourself to hope, because you’re human and you have feelings. Online chemistry can feel intoxicating, but real connection still takes time and familiarity to develop.”
She added, “I think the disappointment softens when you go into a first meeting with no expectations regardless of how you are online, and if it doesn’t go the way you hoped, give some space instead of immediately chasing the next spark. Be gentle with yourself, and a moment to step away from the cycle instead of being carried by it.”
I upvoted immediately.
Thoughtful and kind. That’s not something you find on Reddit every day. LOL.
It’s true, though. High expectations usually meet disappointment in cheating land.
I think one always has in the back of their mind that an affair will end in heartache. However, that is balanced by the joy experienced during the affair.
And one must compare that equation with the constant, unchanging (unchangeable?) heartache of the home situation that is driving us to an affair.
Personally, the affair always has to be worth it.
One Redditor had it right with this comment:
“The only way to win is to change your mindset. Devastation that it didn’t end in sex with someone you didn’t have chemistry with..but you enjoyed flirting with a stranger and that culminated in a fun evening in a dive bar you wouldn’t have found on your own.”
Except, you had a fun night out with a stranger.
It could be worse. Honestly.
We don’t always get what we want.
Previously Published on Medium
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