Have you ever had the fight where you say something, then the person says their bit which does not address your comment in the least, so you say your point again, which doesn’t address their point, so they repeat theirs and it’s a circle of death and hatred and everything that makes you want to pull your eyebrows out? Yeah so, I had a bad day. To top it off, this fight was in Spanish, so there’s a very good chance that I was completely misunderstanding what his or my point actually was.
I THINK it went something like this:
Me- What I’m saying is, flirting is not fucking. (which actually sound quite similar in Spanish) I was flirting with him, and that’s it. I’m a flirt, it means nothing.
Him- Donde esta el baño?
Me- What does that have to do with the fact that I had no intention of hooking up with him?
Him- El pinche baño- donde esta!?
Actually he said something else in Spanish which I ignored because it didn’t sound like, ‘You’re so right!’ Then after listening to a 20 minute diatribe about the building of trust and past wrongs done to him, I come to find out that he’s actually a big fat hypocrite.
On a very related side note, what is the proper etiquette these days for cell phone privacy between romantic partners? My stance is, if there’s nothing to hide, then why hide it? I mean, do married couples really have locked cell phones? To me, (and this is coming from the cynic of all that is fidelity) if you say your partner can’t see your phone, you are absolutely, 100%, without a doubt- cheating. Sexting is cheating too. Besides, who actually sex texts with no intention of fulfillment? Maybe long distance relationships, but even there, they’re going to actually do it at some point.
To be fair, I have to say that there is some validity in the basis of the opposing view point’s arguments. Those who refuse to share phone viewing privileges often say, there are personal boundaries even within a relationship, that must be respected. I agree about boundaries, and those boundaries are- 1: Never talk about/watch/ imply knowledge of me going to the bathroom. Girls don’t poo, that’s just a known fact. 2: No vomiting in front of the other person until 2 years have passed in the relationship. That’s it. Those are my boundaries. Notice the glaring lack of text message holiness. If there is nothing juicy, then there wouldn’t be any reason to keep it to yourself.
The only other defensive argument to protect phone rights is that if you’re snooping, then you don’t trust your partner, and how can you have a relationship without trust? (Usually said with a pouting puppy face) My response? Fuck no I don’t trust you. I barely know you. But believe me, after about 4 times of reading your text messages to your bros where you talk about futbol and who’s penis is bigger, I’m not going to want to look anymore. I’m just checking to see if all your BS about me being the only one is actually true. Once I confirm that you’re not, in fact diddling the girl that I’ve had my suspicions about, then I’ll stop looking. I really don’t care about your bromance with Billy, and I’m not trying to micromanage your life, I just want to know if when the time comes, if I should actually fall for you or not.
I’ve been on both sides of the cheating equation many, many times. I know all the lines that people use to cover their tracks. If you’re hanging out with your family 3 nights a week and I can’t come, you’re either a momma’s boy or, more likely, you’re hooking up with someone else. My favorite, which I used frequently in “caught red handed” moments is, “Tell me what you’re referring to so I can understand/explain/ know what the heck you’re talking about.” Translation- tell me how much you know so I know how big a lie I’m going to have to tell. It’s classic. If they have 3 or more pieces of evidence, then you’re screwed. Either walk away or cry, there’s no other options. Less than three, you need to find out very specifically what they found before uttering a single word of explanation. So when this boy is pulling this very same shit on me after I found some very incriminating texts messages, I knew how to play the game. All I said was, “I know.” Wh-wh-whaaaat? “I know about her.” There’s no battling that. Never give up ground, never say what you found, just pull the omniscient card. They’ll return with, “you’re paranoid”. You can tell them you have proof, even exaggerate the amount, but never specify what tipped you off. Then they can either admit or turn the blame on you and say you’re making things up. If you have to provide one element of proof, do so, but keep one card up the river for safe keeping.
OR, I could just stop dating cheating assholes. When I meet a boy that I trust, I know right away that I’ll never even need to peek at his phone. It’s built in intuition. In sociology of sexuality (although it’s more psychology) we learned that it’s instinctual for humans to detect cheating, we look for the signs of lying in romantic situations. It protects men from raising children that aren’t theirs and women from fleeing men. We can literally sense it. The trick is knowing the difference between jealousy and the cheating alarm. Jealousy is you defending your place in the food chain, but if you were to have the gut feeling that someone is cheating, then all my money is on the fact that you’re right. So why, instincts, am I so attracted to the assholes? Riddle me that.
Another month long relationship comes to an end. For me it was a dramatic end, the discovery of multiple other women, for him, I think it was pretty run of the mill. The cultural differences regarding cheating are something I would love to write an entire thesis about, but for now, let's just say it's not that big of a deal here. My aunt even defended him saying, 'maybe he doesn't like them as much as he likes you'. Somehow, that did not send me running back to him. Her one piece of advice that I liked was that I'm at least getting closer to finding what I want. Him- except with a respect for fidelity- scratch that- a respect for honesty. 
