Bang Who?

Okay, this is gonna be a VERY long post
so you better make sure you're nice and comfortable.
Don't say I didn't warn you.

I know that writing this is so gonna make me sound like a pissy girl who's feminist to the core but I don't care. The feminist in me is dying to make her comeback anyways. What better time than this.


You see, I wrote a somewhat controversial post a few days back and surprisingly, it kinda struck a nerve with a highly-sensitive, male reader I have somewhere out there. I'm not saying who, but take my word for it, he's out there. Haha. The dude somehow or another managed to greatly misunderstand my post and left a comment the last time I wrote on the subject. (I mean, there were other comments also lah, but this is the one I'm choosing to respond to.)

BUT LIKE SO OFF LOR!

Okay okay, let me explain myself before you start pointing your fingers at me and saying that I'm pro-women-let's-kill-all-men like he seems to think I am (which, FYI, I am so not). My Bang Bang post was targeted at cheats (in general), NOT at MEN alone.


I started off the post with a statement of that nature because it was specific to a case I heard about the night that I blogged, where a man cheated on his wife more than a couple of times. That was what spurred off the post in the first place. Not like I suka-suka want to cari pasal. And if you had even bothered to pay attention, you'd have noticed that I went general after the third sentence anyway.




Only 30 out of the 350 words I penned. Come on, that's a measley 8.57142% of the total. Everything else goes both ways thereafter. General. NON-gender specific. Universal. I'm a pretty fair person (even if I may say so myself) and I know that women cheat, too. I'm not that dense or blind. That's why I even used this line:

And responded this way to your comment:




You yang terasa. Hah!

I demand a public apology for defaming me
so very UNJUSTLY and RUDELY on your site.
I'll be waiting for it. And you better make it good.

ROAR.

*cough cough*

Okay, now that we've gotten that part all cleared up, know that I'll be dissecting the comment posted above (in white) into smaller parts (perfect bite-sized chunks for those of you who lack the ability to swallow bigger concepts whole). And while I'm at it, I am going to make this as CLEAR and as SIMPLE as I can, okay, so listen up.

Part I: It's wrong to hurt your loved ones.

True, it's wrong to want to hurt our loved ones. But sometimes, we do. We're not perfect. We're not made that way, and that's what makes us human, after all. We say things we don't mean, we step on toes and we raise our voices at times. But the fact that the hurt comes from cheating is a BIG BIG no-no. And THAT is one "hurt" that comes with no ifs, buts and whens about it. In your words: "It's just wrong." There's no other way to make this any clearer.

Part II: Freedom of speech and action.

I'm wondering how you'll raise your child if freedom of speech and action is all you see and not the vice behind cheating. What about morals? And principles of right and wrong behaviour? And ethical value systems? If you even care for whoever it is who intends or is cheating, you'd tell them to get out of whatever it is they're doing ASAP. No good can come of it and if you're even the friend you say you are, you'd tell them the truth and alert them to the hurt this vice will bring them in the long run. Nobody can invest their hearts into two people at once. NOBODY. They're only silly enough to THINK that they can because the fact of the matter is this: they CAN'T. Somebody in the equation is bound to get hurt in the end.


And you ask: if somebody wants to cheat, who are we to tell them no? We are people who CARE for them and want what's best for them – that's who. And if you're equating telling to doing, you've got a lot of reading to do because that wasn't what I said or meant. It doesn't even come close. I said I will TELL. I didn't say I'd wrestle them to the ground and call the cops. There's freedom of speech on my part and freedom in action on their part. Fair. At least I'm not letting the people I love walk into the lion's den without giving them the heads up. If they're stupid enough to continue doing it, I'll still be there for them, to catch them without an I-told-you-so because that's what real friendship is about.

Part 3: No restrictions but don't
let me find out if it's gonna hurt.

WHAT?! How can you even possibly say that a relationship comes with "no restrictions". It's not possible. There ARE restrictions and there have to be restrictions because what you do inevitably affects somebody else. Your lives became intertwined when you decided to get involved with one another. What you do ricochets off your partner and vice versa. You are RESPONSIBLE for your actions because you are RESPONSIBLE for your partner and his/her feelings. And responsibility comes with a price. It always does. It comes with the price of doing whatever you feel like doing. The price of living like a foolhardy player. The price of living "free".


And the fact that you don't know about it doesn't change a thing. Just cos you do something and somebody doesn't tell on you doesn't mean that you didn't do it. And the fact of the matter is that DOING it is, in the first place, WRONG. No matter how you put it, cheating on somebody you say you love cannot be right. It takes somebody suffering from MPD (Multiple Personality Disorder) to even think that. Cheating on a test is cheating whether or not you get penalised for it. In the same way, cheating on a partner is undoubtedly and inarguably wrong whether or not your partner finds out about it.


And let me ask you this: would you want to be with a partner could be cheating on you? What happens to trust then? There's no value in trust anymore because trust isn't deserved. That means that trust is only another way to say "my eyes are closed to your infidelity". Is that the way it should be? What's the point of being exclusive with someone then? What's the point in committing your life to someone then? And when does it ever stop? Will it ever stop? This is ridiculous.

Part IV: My right to send the other person to the hospital.

Okay, this is another example of how ridiculous an argument can get when there's a self-serving bias (maybe?) at play. Like hello, the one who cheated on YOU was YOUR girl. How can you possibly penalise someone else for that? So what if he cheated with your girlfriend (keyword here: with)? He didn't do it alone. It takes two to tango and YOUR girl made a beeline into his arms. Maybe SHE pulled him into HER arms for all you know. Either way, the one who's answerable to you is not the third party but your partner.


It's funny why people do this all the time. This isn't the first time I'm seeing this. Are you guys really that blinded to the faults of your partners? I mean, people always assume that the one to blame is the third party. I don't. In fact, the one to blame is whoever it is who is the direct link between you and that third party. The third party wouldn't even be in the picture if your partner had the balls or the guts to stand up for your relationship and for what's right. If they even knew the value of what it is you both share, you wouldn't even have to worry about this kind of problems.


For instance, Boy A and Girl B are dating, much like Boy C and Girl D. Suddenly, Girl B and Boy C gatal and decided to secretly see each other behind Boy A and Girl D's backs. What typically happens when everything comes out into the open is that Boy A hates Boy C for fishing in his pond and Girl D hates Girl B for snagging her fisherman.

WRONG.

If you were even the slightest bit mature and rational enough to think about it from an outsider's point of view, you'd see that Cheater Girl B and Cheater Boy C had this golden thing in their laps called CHOICE. And to stress my point further, they CHOSE to cheat on their respective partners. Girl B should be Boy A's problem while Girl D should deal with Boy C. That's how it should work wat. That's how things like cheating should be dealt with. The cheater in the relationship is not the one who snags your partner, it's YOUR PARTNER. He/She is the loser you should be chasing with a shotgun.

So, who do you shoot?

Shoot your slimy, cheating,
worthless other half, that's who.

Bang bang.