Welcome to Issue #26 of The Naked Roommate Newsletter: CHEATING. Welcome to the Cheating issue of The Naked Roommate Newsletter. There are many kinds of cheaters in the world. There are those who cheat on exams, on diets, in Scrabble, while playing Uno, on taxes, on boyfriends, on girlfriends, on husbands, and on wives. This edition of The Naked Newsletter is about cheating on a partner. For many students, college is a time when they first taste the sweet nectar of love. Tragically, this love often turns bitter when a heartless, selfish, deceptive partner cheats. Whether you’re the heartless one, the one sleeping with the heartless one, or the one getting your heart ripped out by the heartless one, cheating affects everyone involved. The cheaters learn how to detach themselves from their emotions and the cheated on learn that love and trust aren't always sacred. It’s a loss of innocence where no one wins. But yet, cheating is the norm on college campuses. Not only are college cheaters learning to live a life based on lies and deceit, those being lied to and deceived seem willing to look the other way. This week, there's no looking anywhere but in the face of the ugly cheating monster. As always, I invite you to be my Facebook friend and to join The Naked Roommate Facebook Group. Have an amazing Naked week!

NEXT WEEK’s TOPIC: TRANSFERRING. Did you transfer? Why? Where from? Where to? What's been the greatest challenge? Are you happy? What do you wish you had known before transferring? Share ALL the details! Sending stories means that you grant Harlan permission to use your stories in The Naked Roommate Newsletter, online, in books, and anywhere else Harlan's writing appears.

THE STORY:
In high school, I'd been seeing a girl for almost a year. We were excellent with no problems in the relationship until December 19 came rolling around. We had had plans for quite a few weeks to go to another city's big Christmas light fiasco. Well, needless to say, she ditched those plans a couple of hours before it was time to go, only to go to a party. She'd never taken a sip of alcohol in her life, and when she told me she had ditched plans with me to go to a party with alcohol, it had already pissed me off.

Well after the party, she had not been acting herself for a couple of weeks. I'm not stupid, and I knew something was going on. We lived 25 minutes apart, on opposite sides of the county. So when I was taking her home a little past midnight a couple of weeks after this party, I just pulled over to the side of the road out in the middle of nowhere. I asked her what was going on, real calmly. I finally got it out of her that she had got totally smashed at the party and had sex with some guy that she didn't even know. After she told me that, I simply started my car, and drove her home in silence. When she got out of the car, eyes flowing with tears, I calmly said, "I don't ever want to see you again," and drove off as she stood there bawling her eyes out.

HOME ARREST IN A THONG

Cheaters don’t have the balls, or ovaries, to say what they honestly feel to the people who love them the most. Instead of being truthful, they choose to hurt, betray, lie, destroy, and deceive their partners in the worst way. Cheating is a sad, weak, and intolerable crime. To not value love, to shatter someone’s trust, and to hurt people so selfishly is something that no one should have to tolerate. It should be against the law.

To be clear, there are two kinds of cheaters in the world: cheaters who cheat once and stop because the sick feeling in their gut is unbearable, and cheaters who cheat again and again, until the sick feeling becomes normal. The first kind of cheaters learn from their mistakes. The second kind learn that they can get away with it. Don’t take my word, look no further than some of our most revered politicians, athletes, actors, musicians, religious leaders, and business leaders. Google “Celeb Cheaters” and you’ll see some the people I’m talking about. The problem is that cheaters today are NOT looked at as undesirable or ugly by future partners. In fact, some partners find it exciting to know they will be treated like crap. Often times it's past partners who go back for more.

Personally, I couldn’t imagine being with a woman who says she loves me in one breath and then sleeps with someone else in the next. I couldn’t imagine being with a woman who trashes my love, toys with my emotions, and puts my health at risk by having sex with someone else and making me believe that I’m the only one. The only way I could ever see forgiving a cheater would be if the cheater sought treatment for an addiction or mental health issue. To cheat is sick and a cheater needs to get treatment for his/her sickness. Even then, trusting her would be a challenge.

As an advice columnist for the past 11 years, I understand how cheating happens and why people put up with it again and again. We live in a world where most people don’t know they have options when it comes to dating and relationships. For most people, love surfaces as a product of a series of fortunate accidents. We don’t know when, where, or how love happens. When it does, we hang on to it as tightly as possible and for as long as possible. Not knowing when it happens means not knowing if it will happen again. So naturally, we try to get all we can out of it. We put up with cheating, lying, and all kinds of abuse because the idea of being single is scarier than being disrespected. So, we tolerate mediocrity (or abuse). Eventually, one of the partners in the relationship stumbles across another option when he or she least expects it. Then cheating ensues.

If cheaters were forced to face the consequences, I believe cheaters would be less likely to cheat. If cheating were a felony punishable under the law, those contemplating cheating might choose to be honest. If a cheater knew he or she would be arrested and placed under home arrest, only, instead of having to wear a bracelet around his or her ankle, the convicted cheater would be required to wear a secure thong that covers his or her privates. It would be called home penis/vagina arrest. If the thong were removed, the offender would face jail time at a maximum security prison (without a protective thong). Now, that would make keep people honest.

Until Congress passes a federal cheating law and places cheaters under penis/vagina arrest (given the number of leaders risking arrest, don’t count on it), it is up to us to enforce our own moral code of conduct.

Dear Harlan,

I made my move when I heard that she (my current girlfriend) was moving out of her ex's place. I asked if things were over. She reassured me that the relationship was finished. We went out for five months. It was great, sexually and emotionally. We professed our love. Still, it always bothered me that we would only meet at my place. She claimed she was living with a girlfriend in a town 15 miles away. I never questioned her, because she was always there when I wanted her there with me. She made the excuse that we could not go to her girlfriend's place because it would be rude to invade her girlfriend's personal space. Eventually, I found out that she did move out of her boyfriend's apartment - and into his house. She was cheating with me the entire time. At first, I felt betrayed and flattered. Flattered because I was "the other guy"; betrayed because I thought I truly loved this woman. The hurt feelings were soon replaced by anger and a desire to get even. So far, I've resisted, but I'm having trouble just "walking away." What should I do?