Cheating seems depressingly common now, is it really?

FellasImSorry · 2024-06-11T23:43:48+00:00

So your male co-workers talk about how often women hit on them? I don’t know these guys, but men bullshit a lot. Especially at work.

If you want to talk cheating, men are more likely to cheat than women. 20% of married men and 13% of married women cheat. That means 87% of married women don’t cheat. These are good odds.

Not that statistics really matter. At the end of the day some people cheat sometimes. They always have and always will. It sucks, but it happens to a lot of people.

I don’t get what the fear is about, tbh. If that happens to you, so what?

Like “oh no! You had an experience! Something happened in your life!”

Skinned-Cobalt · 2024-06-11T23:20:54+00:00

It’s a super hard thing to measure. There are so many studies on this topic that it’s just unrealistic to get a solid percentage on it. From what I have seen it tends to jump around the 10-25% range with some going as high as 45%. Again, that’s just surface glancing a bunch of studies. You also gotta factor in methodology blah blah blah you get the point.

Don’t mean to sound like one of those dipshit redditors when I say this but anecdotal evidence is almost always fruit of the poisoned tree. Sure you can get a lot of anecdotes, but doesn’t mean it’s true. For instance think about how many anecdotal reviews there are on homeopathic treatments. There are A LOT of people who day some shit like crystals cured their crippling back pain or something. Does that mean that’s actually how it happened? Course not. That’s the shit with anecdotal evidence is it is not controlled at all and tends to work in confirmation bias.

People will be vocal about bad shit. You see it online whenever someone brings up that they got cheated on. Yea, it’s bad shit. People don’t really report on the good shit like a successful relationship as much. Keep that in mind.

So what can you actually do about these fears and stuff? Well, it’s the nature of life that risk is present. You get on the freeway and you don’t even THINK about how risky that actually is. You have to be confident in yourself enough to know that you can handle the risk. A relationship is a risk. You take it because it’s an emotional situation, not a logical one. Ultimately if you are going to be paranoid about your SO cheating on you constantly, you probably shouldn’t be in a relationship.

In terms of being attractive and shit like that, I actually find it super reassuring that it is relatively in my control. I lift, run, and eat clean. It’s the one good thing I got from the redpill besides public speaking. You think your chances of getting cheated on are higher if you feel like you aren’t attractive? Well, first of all, go to therapy. Second of all, be proactive about it. Go lift. Get that body that you want. It’s in your control, so take advantage of that.

HelenHavok · 2024-06-11T23:35:35+00:00

Infidelity certainly happens, but it’s not ubiquitous like you are feeling it is. I’m in my late 30s and most of my friends are in committed monogamous relationships now. Only a tiny minority have been involved in unfaithful relationships anytime in their lives.

In my anecdotal experience, there are two types of cheaters: serial cheaters and those who stray because of dysfunction in their relationship. I’ve only known two people who are serial cheaters, either cheating on multiple committed partners or one partner with multiple affair partners.

The other type of infidelity is complicated and tends to be less wantonly selfish. People’s needs - emotional, sexual, etc. - aren’t being met within their relationships and they often don’t feel like they can just leave due to things like children, shared finances, or just basic affection and history. Again, this is a small number of people over my entire life.

All this said, it appears to me that the vast majority of cheating is being conducting by a minority of serial cheaters and not the majority, in the same way that the divorce rate is skewed much higher by the minority of people that get married and divorced 3, 4, or 5 times.

Jumpy-Middle-304 · 2024-06-12T00:07:37+00:00

I have never been in a relationship nor cheated, I don’t know anyone in my personal life who has cheated or been cheated on within the past 3 years

But how often will I be told that I was flirting with someone when I was just being nice to men, wether it be them making a move back or someone asking “do u like them” idk I feel like flirting is so ambiguous, Confirmation bias is so real.

bluemagex2517 · 2024-06-12T00:59:57+00:00

You're just running into availability bias. The internet amplifies bad stories so you hear them more.

I'm almost 40. People cheated just as much in the 90s and 00s, I was around to see that it hasn't really changed since then. The late 60s through the 70s was probably the peak for infidelity and casual sex in general, because it was post-pill pre-AIDS. With very little fear of pregnancy or STDs, people fucked more.

The big difference now is simply that all these stories are available for you to read on the Internet. In 2005, a lot less people were chronically online. You'd mostly hear stories from people IRL and on the TV for the most part. People thought the same thing, that infidelity was worse, in the 90s because of Bill Clinton. His infidelity was all over the news, so many people thought infidelity had increased a huge amount. It hadn't. They just heard about it more often. Shows like Jerry Springer also contributed.

The same thing happens with violence. Violent crimes have dropped steadily and at a high rate since the 70s, including murder. But, a lot of people think that violence is more prevalent because it's on the news more and they run into stories on the Internet more. If murder rates drop by 6%, but your exposure to news of murder and stories of murder go up 20%, your perception is tricked into thinking murder is worse now than ever, when in fact it's less frequent now than ever before.

Personal_Dirt3089 · 2024-06-12T00:15:51+00:00

People have always flirted with each other. It does not usually mean anything.

As for cheating, it has always happened and done by men and women. It's actually harder these days because of social media.

As for reddit, it tends to filter in the angriest of people, so they tend to be overrepresented.

imhereforthemeta · 2024-06-12T00:57:51+00:00

I feel like this is a pretty odd assessment of the situation.

Your coworkers talk about being hit on by women. In my experience, I’ve been accused of hitting on a lot of guys by the guys themselves. Turns out they were just misread me being a nice or friendly person.

There are definitely people who cheat. Sometimes people cheat because they’re miserable in their relationships and sometimes people cheat because they like cheating. I happen to be in a pretty sizable community with fit, athletic, and attractive people and occasionally I will hear about someone cheating and it’s usually a man. That’s just my anecdotal experience just like yours, but I still don’t think that cheating is just something that happens all across-the-board in every relationship. You are letting your bias color your feelings about cheating and who is doing it.

Fuzzy-Constant · 2024-06-12T02:36:42+00:00

A lot of it is cultural. In my circles I've barely heard of anybody in my whole life (I'm in my 40s) who I heard about cheating. One was somebody's dad who cheated like 30 years ago and the other is a neighbor's ex-husband who did it like 5 years ago. I've probably known over 100 couples well enough over the years that I would have heard something if it were really common.

Obviously I expect there has been some cheating I haven't heard about, but I've certainly had a different experience than you.

PNW_Uncle_Iroh · 2024-06-12T04:44:33+00:00

Not really. I’ve never cheated or been cheated on and I don’t know of that happening with any of my friends. I think it depends on who you associate with.

Title	Cheating seems depressingly common now, is it really?
Author	wackrat064
Upvotes	3
Comments	21
Date	June 11, 2024 10:49 PM UTC (2 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/ExRedPill
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/exredpill/comments/1ddrjfh/cheating_seems_depressingly_common_now_is_it/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/ExRedPill/cheating-seems-depressingly-common-now-is-it.1521280 https://theredarchive.com/post/1521280

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