When the news reports were full of stories about Tiger Woods' infidelities and Jesse James' infidelities, my wife asked me “why do men cheat?” [Maybe it was motivated by determining if she had a chance with David Boreanaz, who was also caught cheating at the time. But it was an interesting question.] A few weeks later, I had a discussion with zen8tao, applying Dungeons and Dragons “character alignments” to real life personalities to see if there's a pattern to who we befriend.

My wife and I discussed:

• Evolutionary biology, and the theory that males are driven to spread their seed around, to improve the odds that their genes are propagated. [Our own biases about the sexes: Neither of us suspected that women cheated as much as men in relationships.]
• The corrupting influence of power, and how history has shown that people who feel they have more power are more likely to behave as though they are “above the rules”.
• Gradually increasing infractions that are uncaught or unpunished. Given the cast of “other women” for each of these celebrities, that we know about, it's likely they started with less intimate transgressions than sex, didn't get caught, and kept going until they eventually got caught.
• A lack of ego: some people seem more interested in winning than in being a “winner.” Their desire for triumph exceeds their integrity.
• Cheater's definition: the cheater redefines cheating to themselves. (“It's not cheating if I don't intend it to replace the relationship.”)
• Socialization: Celebrities are sometimes told that they deserve the privilege (of cheating) or even that it's expected.

Regarding my conversation with zen8tao, old role-playing games defined characters along two axes: Good vs. Evil, and Lawful vs. Chaotic.

Zen8tao initially suggested that I have a preference for good people. And while I do, I think I more strongly prefer lawfulness. Lawful means predicatble, adhering to a personal code. I HATE WHEN PEOPLE CHEAT, and violate their personal code. If their code is different than mine, that's something we can deal with. But when people have a code, and knowingly violate it, it irritates me. Now, here's why both of these conversations were personally timely to me. I recently participated in a political process, of sorts, in which there were pre-defined rules, and one of the candidates broke the rule. I shined a light on it. And immediately, that candidates' campaign did everything but correct it...

• They claimed they hadn't violated it, based on some careful truncating of the rule.
• They claimed there was no strict rule.
• They attacked me, my intelligence, and my character.
• They claimed the other candidate had cheated, too, so they should be allowed to.

Given the absence of social censure for the cheating, I'm inclined to believe that cheating in this environment is either much more significant to me than to others, or is more influenced by socialization. So, anyway, I'm going to throw a poll up over in the sidebar. I'll remind you to not log in, when you vote, if you answer that you're a cheater.  (Actually, here's the poll.)