What do men do this?

[Anonymous]

I recently found out that one of my close friends (who was in a relationship for 4 years) was being cheated on by her boyfriend. She was really good to him, did everything for him, they lived together too and were both close to eachothers families etc. she found out that he was kissing and meeting this one specific girl for nearly the last year. He kept making up the excuse that it wasn’t anything serious and that he didn’t sleep with her and he kept saying it was a bit of ‘fun’. She found the messages between them and it wasn’t only sexual flirty messages but also he would always message this girl when he was at work and would always ask her how she was, would message her when she was on holiday asking her how it is etc. it was kinda like a friendship with sexual chemistry etc.

My friend doesn’t know what to do now. He said he will cut it off with his ‘side piece’. She owns a property with him and was in the mindset of wanting him to propose in the next few years…

[MrOracle]

It's not "men" who do this, it's PEOPLE - certain specific people. Specifically, it's people who are amoral and who are selfish and self-centered - even narcissistic.

Here's the problem: people like that are VERY often *attractive* on the surface. In fact, BEING attractive is one of the reasons they're allowed to get away with being selfish and self-centered - everyone finds them attractive and so they've always given their poor behavior a pass.

Have you ever seen the sitcom Two And A Half Men, with Charlie Sheen? Sheen plays Charlie Harper, a very wealthy, reasonably fit and handsome "player" with a super easy job that lets him work from home and do a few hours of work a month and otherwise just enjoy his $20M Malibu beach house. MANY women found him VERY attractive - enough to go home with him and sleep with him on the first date - and yet he routinely used them and cheated on them. That was a major theme of the TV show.

Some of those women were straight up dumb (and often drunk), but even smart, educated, experienced women fell for it and believed his (pretty obvious) lies - even though these women KNEW he was a player with a long history of using women. So why did they get with him anyway? Because he was INTERESTING (because he was DANGEROUS, even if only emotionally) and he was SUCCESSFUL - he had an expensive house, expensive car, and a life of comfort and leisure. Now, not all player types are rich, and not all are really good-looking - sometimes it may be a biker or a drug dealer, but they're someone with status among their peer group and someone with a lot of confidence and drive.

The way women (or anyone) can avoid this is by VETTING potential partners based on their morals, values, and life-goals, and they need to do this from the very beginning, BEFORE they have made a commitment. But most people are unwilling to do this, because they already know that doing this will disqualify nearly all of the people they find to be the most attractive, and most people just won't do that - so, of course, they get hurt.

In men, we call these "bad boys" or "Chads", and most women are attracted to bad boys in exactly the same way that bugs are drawn to the hypnotic purple-blue neon glow of a bug zapper. Even though most KNOW that the bug zapper is certain death (or certain emotional damage), they still fly straight towards it, trying to give it a big hug, and then ZAAAAAAAAAAAAPPPPP!

Men do this too, but they do it with "bad girls", and they get similar outcomes.

Again, with proper priorities and vetting, getting hurt like this is largely avoidable - but too few people are willing to put in the work or to disqualify the really attractive people, no matter how bad they are for them. And until that changes, people will continue to get hurt, and it will be their own fault for making poor choices in partners.

People rarely change their morals and values, and nearly everyone who you EVENTUALLY realize has poor morals and values had those same morals and values from the first day you met them - you just didn't acknowledge the red flags, or didn't even bother to look. And the chances of turning a bad person good are about the same odds of winning back to back lotto jackpots - theoretically it's possible, but the odds are so incredibly against you that you can't use it as a strategy.

[Paul09]

"Why do men do this?" . Real men do not do this. It's the bad boys. The selfish that do this. I do not understand why these types of "men" get to hook up so easily. Then ruin someone's life.

[DishLady]

She should move on. Cheaters are cheaters... they don't change.

[DrPepper12]

MYOB let your friend figure it out until she asks you for advice.

[CubaPirate]

Because some men are just assholes, but thankfully I'm not one of them