We Were On A Break

I'm watching Friends...the episode when Rachel finds out that Ross slept with the girl from the copy shop. Hence, the title. I know it's morbid, but this is my 2nd favorite episode (the 1st is when they say "Mrs. Chanandaler Bong"! That is SO FUNNY!). Anyway, the whole conversation, when Ross & Rachel are in the apartment and everyone is hiding in Monica's bedroom, is just so intense and so sad. Cheating is such a horrible thing. It tears you up in a way that changes you forever.

Now, in this situation, I agree that they were on a break. So this wasn't technically cheating. But still, I know why her heart was broken. The night of the break up, she's at home crying and missing him and torn up inside, while he was fucking the copy shop girl. It is just so cold and heartless. Maybe it was revenge, because she hurt him. I can see that. But I can also see how she just can't get past it. She can't get those images out of her head. She can't help wondering what he was thinking when he was with her, how he felt, what he said to her. She can't lay in his bed without thinking of him with her. She can't hold his hand or fall asleep in his arms without feeling dirty. It's hard enough to deal with all the women that came before you when you fall in love with someone, but to deal with someone that was there yesterday, when you were there two yesterdays ago, and he wants you to be there today...it's just too much.

And I can also see him, and how he feels. That he is so afraid, and he does love her but he thought she left him. And he was angry and scared and he wanted revenge, so he slept with the copy shop girl. Of course he would've rather spent that night with Rachel, but she kicked him out. And she had good reason to kick him out - he was being an asshole. But he is right, they were on a break. If she wasn't done with him, she shouldn't have said that. She shouldn't have let him go if she still wanted his faithfulness. He never would have done what he did if he knew what the consequences would be. This wasn't the typical cheating situation. He thought he had lost her. And yes, he should have fought harder to keep her and shouldn't have turned to someone new so quickly, but I do kind of get it. As much as I don't like sex, I've definitely had revenge sex, and it's just because you are so hurt that you don't know what to do. You think you can hurt them the worst way possible, and you do, but you also hurt yourself. It's awful.

Having said all that though, had there not been a break, cheating is an unforgiveable sin. I don't care what anybody says. You don't cheat "by mistake." I've hooked up with, kissed, and/or slept with a LOT of people in my life and it never happened by mistake. We always knew what we were doing. Nobody tripped and fell. Maybe sometimes there is intoxication, but that is no excuse. Maybe you can't drive a car, but you still can control who you touch, I don't care how drunk/high you are. And if you can't, then you have no business being that drunk/high in the 1st place. And you don't cheat on somebody you love. If you really loved a person, you wouldn't want to cheat on them. It wouldn't be a sacrifice not to be with someone else, because you would love the person you're with enough that they are who you want. Otherwise, you are just deluding yourself. That "you always hurt the ones you love" thing is crap. If you love a person, you do everything you can not to hurt them. You protect them from other people who hurt them. You know what things will hurt them and you don't do those things. That is how you treat people you love. If you don't, then you really don't love that person. You may think you do - but you don't. At least not yet. And once you really do love someone, you will know that this is the truth.

And that's all I have for now.