*I apologize if this is a few days late, but I tried to get it run as an Op-Ed piece first. No one took me up on my offer

Relationship Status: It’s (Not That) Complicated

There’s been a lot of talking in the news lately. On Monday, Tiger Woods and Elin Nordegren formally divorced. Just last week, a new study on why men cheat was released and made national headlines.  According to Christin Munsch, a Ph.D. candidate at Cornell University, men are more likely to cheat when their female partner makes more money than them.  This finding seemingly makes sense as many men may feel emasculated and cheat to regain their manhood.

But if men cheat because they feel powerless, what about the men that cheat because they are powerful, like Tiger?  There’s no secret that celebrities, elected officials, and CEOs are prone to stray because they are constantly travelling and surrounded by women looking for a sugar daddy.

But why stop there?  Let’s not forget that some men cheat because they have an opportunity to date a more attractive woman.  Some men cheat because they lack self control.  Many men cheat because they have more options in the age of the Internet.  Some men, like Gov. Mark Sanford, get married without even taking a vow of fidelity.

Men do not need a reason to cheat, so why waste time trying to find the root cause of it.  Relegating fidelity to a science only leads to ridiculous results.  For instance, according to Dr. Phil, some men cheat because they have the “cheating gene” manifested by a ring finger that’s longer than your index finger.  While people may disagree about whether someone can be born gay, the desire to cheat should be universally understood.  Let’s face it, there are a lot of at women out there.  Monogamy requires a man to turn down every woman for the rest of his life.  Many, dare I say most, men are not up to the challenge.

Thus, I believe, the real inquiry should be into why men do not cheat.  If researchers would focus on why men do not cheat, then sociologists would be able to put together more comprehensive data on monogamous men (i.e. age, viewers of pornography, occupation).  I have read countless studies which attempt to create profiles of male cheaters, but never one on men that are faithful.

Another reason why there should not be studies on why individuals cheat is because monogamy is rooted in contractual, not biological, principles.  All relationships are contracts.  When a man enters into a relationship he expressly or impliedly agrees to be faithful in exchange for faithfulness from the other person.  As a contract, relationships are influenced by external social factors.  A recent study found that people are more likely to get divorced when someone close to them divorces.  The same reasoning applies to cheating

Unfortunately, if you look on television or even in your neighborhoods, you will see men that have failed in their responsibility as a husband and/or father.  It has come to the point where many people have given up on monogamy.

Losing faith in monogamy will only make the problem worse. I often hear women talk about how people make mistakes and how they should give men a second chance. If a man suspects that his significant other would take him back, he’s more likely to take that risk. It’s time for women to stop giving men a separate standard for fidelity. When we enter a relationship each party need to have the attitude that they won’t cheat.  There was a time when we used to expect exclusivity and commitment.  I subsequently added ReExpect.com to my domain name because we need to return to these expectations.

So how do we rethink the way we view infidelity? I believe there’s strength in numbers.  Many men that do not cheat feel persecuted by society because we often measure a man’s masculinity by the number of sexual partners he currently has.  In order for men to be able to be more outspoken about fidelity, we must first foster an environment where it’s cool to be monogamous. Men will think twice about cheating if they are surrounded by men that make them feel bad about it.

The first step is to start looking at the influences of society as a whole instead of the individual.  Some of the greatest romantic films of all time – Casablanca to The Notebook – have infidelity at the root of the story.  Also if we truly want to save monogamy, we must get to root of why men defy culture and choose to be faithful rather than devising scientific theories which seemingly justify infidelity.

The Formerly Happy Couple

That’s honestly a hard question.  Meet Jonas Bergstrom, an admittedly handsome young man that is was engaged to Princess Madeleine of Sweden (who is also very attractive).  Jonas allegedly had an affair with a troll looking college student (doesn’t that seem to be the story with everyone) and now the wedding is called off.

What an idiot.   What makes matters worse is that he apparently had a one night stand.  If you are engaged to a princess that you’ve been dating for 8 years, you mean to tell me that you are willing to throw all of that away for ONE NIGHT of action?  I hope it was worth it.

I realize that people make mistakes, but after 8 years of being faithful, fighting off women should be pretty easy.  Having a one night stand is a rookie movie bro.  Something isn’t adding up.  You don’t have one night stands with unattractive women unless 1) it’s not really a one-night stand and you’ve cheated before or 2) you weren’t happy in the relationship to begin with.  In either case, it’s best for the princess that she didn’t marry this sleezeball.

Take note from Prince Madeleine Elin Nordegren; this is what a (Swedish) lady with dignity looks like.

Source: Daily Mail

The Other Woman

This ad doesn’t make me want to purchase anything by the company. Creepy indeed.

Priceless Photo

Unfortunately, I believe this one.  I am REALLY getting tired of this story, but there’s some new twist every day.  I can think of a lot of things I’d do with $10 million dollars.

Source: NY Daily News

SMH

I swear this Josyln James chick doesn’t know when to stop.  Just last week, she released a website releasing texts that Tiger sent, now she’s stripping in Atlanta while Tiger will be right up the street in Augusta during the Masters.  I don’t know when (or better yet IF), this story will end.

I know you’ve got a lot of money, but Tiger Woods, it must suck to be you.

Source: AJC

And Another One...

Porn star Devon James is saying that she and a friend had a threesome with Tiger. If true, he’ll be eerily close to that magic number 18. According to the article, Woods paid $4,000 for the tryst.

Source: Fox News

Worth 1000 Characters

Today one of of Tiger’s attention-craving mistresses, Joslyn James, launched a website called sextingjoslynjames.com.  I tried to visit the website, but it probably won’t load for now due to the heavy web traffic.  Until then, check out this Dscriber.  Tiger’s a naughty boy.

According to the Chicago Tribune, James, also known as Veronica Siwik-Daniels, using the website to generate publicity for herself.  The website says:

“Veronica is looking forward to the next chapter in her exciting career. Fans are encouraged to keep checking back here for future plans and sometimes controversial announcements,” the site states.

It’ll be interested to see how the Master’s Tournament treats him as they like to keep a low profile.

Tiger you put how much work into perfecting your game?  You also have to put in work to perfect a relationship.  Discipline is something you should know all too well.

Early Elimination

Remember when we discussed the Tiger Woods mistress beauty pageant two months ago? Well it’s scheduled for next Wednesday, March 10. I wasn’t going to post anything about it until then, but there was a relatively big development today.

Apparently one of the four women is dropping out. Stern & co are still trying to make an event of this and are offering her a guaranteed prize even if she doesn’t win. She would also get a Black diamond, which was reserved for the winner. Smh.

Source: Fox News

…and the Jenny Sanford was granted her divorce.  I’ve been a little busy this week, so I apologize for being a few days late.

Sign of the Times

I know that everyone makes mistakes.  Sometimes I may send an e-mail to the wrong person or forget to attach a document.  That’s why I’ve added the retrieve e-mail function on Gmail, which allows you to stop messages before they are sent out.

But TigerText takes things to the next level.  This free apps released today allows you to “Cover Your Tracks” by deleting a message from both phones and from the servers.  Here’s an example of how it works:

It works like this: when, say, a prominent Southern politician sends his mistress an iPhone message via TigerText, the mistress will be prompted to install the app. When she has done this, she can read the message, but she can’t keep it. In fact the message is never actually sent to her phone — it’s stored on Tiger Text’s servers. After the timespan that the politician specified has elapsed — anywhere from one minute to five days — the message ceases to exist. There’s even a “Delete on Read” setting, which counts down from 60 after it’s opened, and erases the text at zero.

Time Magazine is on top of these cheating apps, as they also had an article about the AshleyMadison web app.  Keep up the good work, Time!

The company claims that the use of the word “Tiger” in this context is completely coincidental.  They just so happened to keep it in the wake of the Tiger Woods scandal.  For some reason I find that hard to believe.

I don’t know how popular this app will be, but they are coming on Blackberry and Android shortly.  While the name TigerText is not the most discreet, know that there will be a proliferation of similar apps in the months to come.

Source: Time and TigerText Website