Dylan Selterman

So it could be that it could be that, you know, maybe they found out their partner was cheating and they thought, well, now I have a free pass to go and do it.

And it could be that.

They feel like infidelity is generally wrong, but in this specific situation, maybe it's okay.

They're kind of, you know, making some, doing some mental gymnastics there.

The truth is that we don't really know to the extent to which people are going through those kind of mental gymnastics because it's hard to assess that on a one-time survey.

That's an interesting idea.

Some people do have affairs as a way to test the waters and explore what else is out there in terms of possibilities before breaking up with their partner.

So it could be a chicken or an egg kind of thing.

I mean, poaching seems to imply that everything was going well and then some seductress just swoops in and grabs you from your partner.

And I think it's more like

an interplay where someone's initially dissatisfied in some sense with their relationship most people though you know if if they have a one-time affair they might not want to break up and end their relationship i think the people who stay together are the ones who have this kind of initially high level of commitment and intimacy and they're just you know not necessarily sexually satisfied

Yeah, I think in general, people are excited about condemning those that they feel have done something morally wrong.

There's something like a moral righteousness that people have when they have successfully identified the rule breakers to try to shame them.

But of course, again, we know that infidelity is...

It's common.

It does happen.

So it's it's the kind of thing where you're asking a majority of people to think about this thing that's common.

But we don't want to believe that it's common.

We want to believe that it's rare.

So and only the bad people do it.