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- The Observer,
- Sunday October 7 2001
You don't have to be up to your knees in Victorian morality to have noticed that infidelity is a 'bad' thing. By the same token, you don't have to be drowning in decadence to have also noted that some people are better at infidelity than others. The trail of lies, misery and destruction remains the same, but it's only polite to keep the numbers down. Two is usually good. One being the person you're actually supposed to be with (wife; husband; live-in amour), the other being the person you simply can't be without. That way, however much havoc is wreaked, at least all parties feel something special has occurred, and emerge bonded in some mad, painful way by the sticky glue of love, romance, betrayal and all those other things that are supposed to make the pulse beat faster, and frequently do. Get greedy, though, and you're really in trouble, because then not only are both your better halves hurt, confused, bitter, and all the rest of it, they are also that most unforgivable of things - outnumbered.
Anyone who is sceptical about this, anyone wondering quite what numbers have got to do with it when one betrayal is all it takes, should have copped a look at Patsy Kensit's face when she discovered Ally McCoist wasn't only cheating on his wife but also on both of them with air stewardess Donna Gilbin. It is one thing being the Other Woman, quite another undignified non-event being One Of The Other Women. Meanwhile, wife Allison, of the brave bleached hair and stoic smile, was apparently prepared to rationalise her husband's dalliance with Kensit until Gilbin popped up with her 'Me too!' routine. No woman finds it easy to picture her man with another, but it gets yet harder when she has to picture him preening away in a self-styled harem. There's nothing worse than when the painfully personal starts looking remarkably impersonal - when 'It meant nothing' turns out to be true.
Considering all the trouble it causes, it's a miracle anyone bothers to be unfaithful. One ladies' man I know says it's his way of 'treating' himself. You think I'm making this up? Well, I'm not. Just as his wife might treat herself to a new handbag because she 'deserves' it, he picks up extra girlfriends because (hey!), he's 'worth it'. The way he sees it, he could be sublimating his deepest desires into racing cars, getting smashed or running for public office, but, in the end, it all comes down to the same thing: 'Me time'. And it has to be said that this chap is good, really good, at infidelity. Of course he feels guilty ('Sometimes for whole minutes at a time'), but he is discreet, thoughtful, romantic, and keenly aware that the chief danger of the satellite relationship is that, all too soon, it becomes as complicated as the core one. Whereupon, perfectly agreeable affairs metamorphose into ersatz bad marriages - double the grief, no real fun for anybody and two turkey dinners to force down on Christmas day.
So, romantic moonlighters, surfers of extra-curricular sensuality, however you like to bill yourselves, should take note. One brief dalliance could be explained away as an aberration. It doesn't even have to be your fault. From what I hear, feeling 'neglected' works wonders. 'Confused' is good, too - but don't get genuinely confused and tell the truth, along the lines of: 'She was much better looking than you.' As long as you appear guilt-ridden, there's a small chance t you can get away with it. After all, infidelity has been around as long as relationships have. However, push your luck, do the multiple thing, and you're screwed, and not in a nice way. It's always nice to remain lovable to someone - to leave at least one smitten soul pining for what might have been. When the person you're being unfaithful with turns as cold and nasty as the person you're being unfaithful to, that, my friends, is bad planning. Almost as bad as getting caught in the first place.
The tricky thing about understanding infidelity is that we only ever get to observe 'bad' (as in incompetent, unsuccessful) infidelity. Those are who are actually nabbed with their pants down, people like Ally McCoist, are merely the failed unfaithful. You never hear about the success stories because those men and women who are good at infidelity are good precisely because they don't get caught. Their talents, their triumphs, their lives' work, remain a mystery to us all, maybe even to themselves. That's when you understand that successful infidelity really is all about numbers - not how many different people you can be with, rather how many different people you can be.
• barbara.ellen@observer.co.uk
