Man informs stranger is wife is potentially cheating, starts controversy

kurokotetsu

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Queen Michael said:
kurokotetsu said:
Queen Michael said:
All I'm saying is that if the woman was cheating, then this was a 100% right thing to do. I hate cheaters more than I hate any other people. They're scum.
More than murderers? More than child abusers? More than animal abusers? more than torturers? more than people that sell the future of other for profit? more than negligent corrupt individuals that may cuase hundreds of deaths? More than people selling post-axpiration date medicine, profiting from poor and helpless individuals? More than people who traffic and abuse other human beings? More than fundamentalist that cut women? More than all the felons and criminals who actually hurt innocent people? Cheaters are really worse? Might be bit judgementa, but there are thousands of things worse than cheating and the poeple that do them deserve more hate than a behaviour that is both common and not always damaging or baseless.
I've been cheated on, okay? It's personal. It's the same reason that Dolores Umbridge is hated more than He Who Must Not Be Named himself.
Very sorry to hear that. But, and with no disrespect to your personal circumstances, there are still worse people in the world. And sorry it hurts but from my experience, as small and insignificant as it is, such as being mugged and have had family and friends kidnapped, it is of no use to hate every wrong doer get hunged up on the feeling, nor is it imposible to see that there are really worse things in the world. Hope you feel better in the future, it sure sucks to have your trust betrayed.

BeerTent said:
That's a damn fine Avatar, Kurokotetsu.
Thank you. If you are into the stuff that is representen by the symbol, I opened a group for like minded fellows here in the Escapist.

gmaverick019 said:
if someone in front of you happened to be texting, and you glanced and saw "I'm going to fucking kill you." or "Why hasn't my bomb gone off?" would you not do a double take or possibly do something about it?

I realize those aren't the same comparisons as cheating, but you are trying to blissfully ignore context here. and yes it probably seems like I'm picking on you, but you seem to be my devils advocate in this regard, as I fucking hate cheating, it drives me up the fucking wall how selfish and arrogant some people can be by doing it.
it is none of my business. I've seen used and have used similar expressions to those, in both text and phone calls, in public places and anyone meddling would be very much ask to leave me alone, as the expressions themselves are not an ilegal act, There are contexts, Yes, contexts that you don't know of. You have no authority to tell me anything about my life, unless you have definite proof that there are lives on the líne, as a prívate citizen, your mortality and prejudices and judgements do not override my right to privacy.

An yes I expect privacy in my texts even in public places. If a I talk loudly I know that I might be heard, even while I would very much like that even then no one meses with me, but text I am not broadcasting my communication, and as such is prívate and even if you have a glimpse at it you have no right to keep looking at it because you might think it is wrong.

Someone said that you may not watch porn in public. I say that you can and no one should brother you for it. It is your prívate device, of it ofends others, bad for them. As far as I know it is not illegal. Go for it.
 

Dimitriov

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BloatedGuppy said:
Dimitriov said:
I approve. Cheaters are the worst kind of scum.

And to those who complain that he was reading private messages on her phone: it's adorable that you still believe there is such a thing as a private message on a phone in this day and age >:p
So I repeat, you're perfectly fine with me combing through your messages, or your loved one's messages? And informing any loved ones or relatives or employers of any moral codes I hold that you might have broken? You'd be 100% okay with that, and would not condemn my actions in any way?

BTW we don't know if she cheated or not, and neither did the guy who wrote the note.
You could probably tell from the tone of that that I was kind of being lightly sarcastic while also trying to make a point. But, at the same time, go right ahead. I already assume that various governmental agencies are reading my texts anyway, and I text accordingly. So knock yourself out.

My point isn't that we shouldn't have privacy, it's that we don't. And, anyway if someone can read your phone's screen from where they're sitting I am not sure that really counts as your private space that they're invading. In that case I feel like you've put your personal stuff sufficiently in the public eye.
 

BloatedGuppy

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Jingle Fett said:
This article here has a comment from the guy who warned the other guy (it's the 5th comment down, by "Lye Beastin")
http://madworldnews.com/man-pregnant-wife-texting/

Here are some exerpts from his comment (it's pretty long), which give a bit more context as to his mindset and why he did what he did.

Just to clear up a few things since people seem to want to know.The main reason I even decided to pay attention to this "lady" was because she had said something that irritated me and everyone else around us. The guy behind her said "wow for the price they charge for fries here that's pretty small, they barely give you anything" and she replied out loud "it's okay, I'm use to small things " right in front of her man and the rest of us. Every one was shocked and embarrassed for her man including the guy who made the comment about her fries. That's what really ticked me off, also that's how she brought the attention to herself. That is the main reason I believe I went out of my way to do what i did, it just irritated me and I felt bad for this guy (mind you I was a little tipsy, I had been tailgating since 9am ;).
Well, my suspicion that the story was 90% fake has been elevated to certainty that it is 100% fake.

Still interesting to discuss as a hypothetical though. Will try respond to other people later today when I get a chance.
 

TallanKhan

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I was struggling with how I felt about this but when it breaks down the only (on the surface) innocent party here is the husband (if indeed his wife was cheating and if the note leaver was reading her texts over her should they were both guilty of morally questionable behaviour, if on a different scale) so I put myself in his shoes. When i did that the only thing that I could think was that if I were him, I would have wanted someone to hand me that note.

So Note Leaver, I don't know you and you don't know me, but nicely done.
 

Jesterscup

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Adeptus Aspartem said:
Swell guy. What he did was morally correct. Once you have that knowledge not informing the husband is just cruel.
One of the things I love about these forums is the way people will often jump on the moral high ground of what is to them a theoretical situation. In practice these things get vastly more complex, and grey.

I've been in the situation of knowing someone is cheating on someone else, my first course of action is usually speaking to the 'cheater' and having a full and frank discussion. At best you then give them the chance to come clean ( which will almost always lead to a better situation than you informing their partner without any discussion ). Thats probably as far as I can go without actually being in the situation.

As for strangers? no, no , no no way... uh-huh what seems 'morally' right from the outside can have unintended results from lack of information. Perhaps he already knows, perhaps he is the type that may resort to violence ( see now you've just put yourself in danger), perhaps he's violent ( you've just put her in danger), perhaps she is violent, and you may have put him in danger. I could go on....

It comes down to this, when you don't know a situation, you can't possibly know what the correct thing to do is. If 'husband beats his 'cheating wife' and sends her to hospital for something that may be innocent, how morally right are you then?
 

BloatedGuppy

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gmaverick019 said:
If my gf/wife was at a football game, and the random person behind her happened to see what she was texting because she was obviously in a high volume area and his line of sight happened to pass in that general direction anyways, then no, I wouldn't have a problem with it
Except the hypothetical he in this obviously fabricated scenario didn't "happen to see". In the "further explanations" segment below, Imaginary Bro hears the woman make a supervillain comment, and the combination of this + alcohol convinced him her phone texting must immediately be monitored.

Also, next time you're at a sporting event or theater, please, try to read the phone of the person in front of you. The entire concept behind stadium seating is that the people sitting in front of you are NOT in your sight line, so that they're not obscuring your vision of the even you ostensibly paid to see. If your "wandering eyes" just happen to capture vast swaths of someone's personal texts, you were making a deliberate choice to read them. It wasn't an accident.

Oh, and I call 100% bullshit. Clearly I cannot prove it, but I often a guarantee if you caught some random reading your phone over your shoulder, or a loved one's phone, you wouldn't just shrug and carry on.

gmaverick019 said:
You could switch the gender of any of the three parties involved, and my opinion would not change regardless
Sure. Why are you bringing gender into it at all?

gmaverick019 said:
you're assuming just as much if not more based on any evidence shown.
Did I assume he was a wife beater? For heavens sake gmaverick. I said I lacked ALL information about their circumstances. Which means I'm engaging in a complete LACK of assumptions. Which is why I've repeatedly said the correct course of action is to leave the two of them the fuck alone.

gmaverick019 said:
this isn't someone going and grabbing her phone and combing through the messages
So that's the only way to violate someone's privacy then?

gmaverick019 said:
if so, and you go through something like this on a normal basis, then I pity you for thinking you had real "privacy" in that situation.
I don't go through it on any basis, and for like the fifty-fifth fucking time, I am not arguing about the naivety of expecting privacy, I'm arguing about the ethical ramifications of Imaginary Bro's actions. I'm starting to get the feeling a LOT of people on this forum actively engage in reading people's phones over their shoulders, and are pushing back against the statement it's a shitty thing to do.
 

BloatedGuppy

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gmaverick019 said:
then your eyes are very slothish at picking up key words and contextual hints.
See, my eyes go where I want them to go. That's how eyes generally work. If I want to see a thing, I look at it. If I don't want to, I don't look at it. I don't accidentally read pages of a book because someone has it open near me, and I don't accidentally read pages of texts because someone is texting near me. If your eyes are doing this I suggest a quick visit to an opthamologist is in order.

gmaverick019 said:
Man sits down at game...
The scenario you've outlined here is entirely different from the one presented in this particular imaginary clickbait story.

gmaverick019 said:
I agree though, likely fake
Entirely fake.

gmaverick019 said:
however, using a sick day =/= cheating on someone, not by a long shot.
Not the equivalence I was illustrating. I'm asking if you think having strangers review your personal information, and without any context beyond what they see make snap decisions based on their own morality and interfere in your personal affairs accordingly. What if the person behind you was a devout Christian who disapproved of your partying? Or a "social justice bogeyman" who disapproved of your language? Or any of a vast panoply of people who felt the need to impose judgments on their PERCEPTION of your life based on a snapshot of text messages they happened to feel like spying on?

Alas, we already established "you'd be fine with it".

gmaverick019 said:
if someone in front of you happened to be texting, and you glanced and saw "I'm going to fucking kill you." or "Why hasn't my bomb gone off?" would you not do a double take or possibly do something about it?
So "vague language to an unidentified third party that could hypothetically indicate infidelity" = "impending murder or threat to my personal safety" now, does it? Shall I quote "false equivalence" to you, or shall we just write this one off as a bad example?

gmaverick019 said:
I realize those aren't the same comparisons as cheating, but you are trying to blissfully ignore context here.
I'm not ignoring context AT ALL. I'm the person pointing out that no one HAS ANY.

gmaverick019 said:
and yes it probably seems like I'm picking on you, but you seem to be my devils advocate in this regard, as I fucking hate cheating, it drives me up the fucking wall how selfish and arrogant some people can be by doing it.[/spoiler]
Yes, I understand cheating is a boogity-boogity man for a lot of people on these forums, we've had threads on it in the past. Here, I'll give you some examples of cheaters I've known.

1) Guy whose wife hadn't had sex with him in over 7 years. Didn't want a divorce because of the kids. Wanted to feel a human touch. Made a connection with someone they worked with.

2) Young girl whose relationship was in a death spiral. Guy was both physically and emotionally abusive. When he found out she'd slept with someone else, he tried to choke her. Bystanders had to intervene.

3) Two people in an "open relationship". Once the open part started actually being expressed, guy had second thoughts. Woman didn't want to break off the thing she'd started immediately. Guy got extremely upset. Almost tore their relationship apart.

4) Woman who fell in love with her husband's best friend after her husband ballooned up to 275 lbs from 200 following their wedding.

All of those people were guilty of cheating. By the definition of the people on this forum, they are all "dirtbag scumdick cheating fuckfaces". Because "cheating" is always 100% black and white. Because we own our partners like property. Because monogamy isn't something that needs to be worked on, it's a constant state of being you have to willfully abandon. Because relationships can be left to wither and expire and you can still trust that the other person will be completely faithful to you, because sexual fidelity is the ONLY thing that must never be abandoned.

Or you know, it's complicated, and a lot of factors are involved, and we should mind our own business if we're not close enough to the situation to understand all the variables.
 

Jesterscup

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BloatedGuppy said:
I'm starting to get the feeling a LOT of people on this forum actively engage in reading people's phones over their shoulders, and are pushing back against the statement it's a shitty thing to do.
Considering the fact a lot of people on here do other pretty shitty things and find crappy excuses to justify them, I'd have to agree.

That being said, pretty shitty people exist everywhere, so we have to assume that when we ( as non-shitty people, I'm making an assumption about you here, I hope you don't mind), have to be aware of the unintended effects of our actions. even if it's something you'd expect to have an amount of privacy in.

Eg.
Stupid post on internet... expect shit
stupid comment in RL --- expect shit
doing stuff on phone in public... expect shit.

Is reading someone phone an invasion of privacy? Hmmm I want to say yes, but I doubt that ol' 'reasonable expectation of privacy' clause would hold up ion a court of law in this circumstance. Shit you can't help but see stuff sometimes, hell hide you'r phone a little it's invading my right to not know your shit.

Privacy is kinda a current theme around here, that and censorship. Frankly, Meh! hell I can say that stronger MEH! at best privacy is an illusion, the only place that is truly private is the inside of your own head ( and possibly not for long either )
 

BloatedGuppy

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Jesterscup said:
Considering the fact a lot of people on here do other pretty shitty things and find crappy excuses to justify them, I'd have to agree.

That being said, pretty shitty people exist everywhere, so we have to assume that when we ( as non-shitty people, I'm making an assumption about you here, I hope you don't mind), have to be aware of the unintended effects of our actions. even if it's something you'd expect to have an amount of privacy in.

Eg.
Stupid post on internet... expect shit
stupid comment in RL --- expect shit
doing stuff on phone in public... expect shit.

Is reading someone phone an invasion of privacy? Hmmm I want to say yes, but I doubt that ol' 'reasonable expectation of privacy' clause would hold up ion a court of law in this circumstance. Shit you can't help but see stuff sometimes, hell hide you'r phone a little it's invading my right to not know your shit.

Privacy is kinda a current theme around here, that and censorship. Frankly, Meh! hell I can say that stronger MEH! at best privacy is an illusion, the only place that is truly private is the inside of your own head ( and possibly not for long either )
This is coming up repeatedly in this thread. That the argument that reading someone's phone of their shoulder is shitty = we should expect to be ensconced in privacy bubbles wherever we go, and I'm a naive wunderkind who doesn't understand how the world works. I'm starting to feel like a broken record.

I don't know how anyone could have drawn breath over the last two decades and still believe that you enjoy ironclad privacy, particularly when you communicate electronically. Her expectation of privacy and whether or not she was naive for having it isn't or shouldn't be the focal point of the discussion. We're discussing Imaginary Bro, and whether he was Gallant or Goofus. Hypotheticals in which his eagle eyes wandered for a split second and absorbed an hour's worth of text messages aside, he clearly made the decision to spy on someone's text messages. My argument "This is shitty". The counter arguments have ranged from "the ends justify the means" to "I accidentally read an hour's worth of text messages every time I turn my head" to "there is no privacy reading text messages is fun stop judging me".
 

Jesterscup

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BloatedGuppy said:
We're discussing Imaginary Bro, and whether he was Gallant or Goofus. Hypotheticals in which his eagle eyes wandered for a split second and absorbed an hour's worth of text messages aside, he clearly made the decision to spy on someone's text messages. My argument "This is shitty".
Hey, just to be clear we're on the same sheet here. But judging from a certain 'gate' some people will happily use the flimsiest of excuses to justify shitty behaviour.

The counter arguments have ranged from "the ends justify the means"
My previous post in this thread, which most people ignored pretty much covers this. What do people think the ends are? a cheater revealed ( huzzah ( ironic) or abuse & violence? the 'husband' is hypothetical too, and 'bro' didn't know whether he was a 'dude' or a maniac.

"I accidentally read an hour's worth of text messages every time I turn my head"
So so I invoked it myself, but again what right do I have to act upon said information? at best it's out of context. Someone mentioned reading a txt of people talking about bombing somewhere, how the f^&%k do you know its not them using stoner terminology or a pair of counter strike players?
 

the December King

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Since it might all be bullshit... they might not have been a married couple, and she might have been just dating around. I know, a late-term pregnant woman, it doesn't seem likely, but if her two interested parties were close friends of hers, or at least older friends of hers, then I could understand it- she was just playing the field before committing. Taking that a little further down the promiscuity line, the idea of an open relationship going sour, in the sense that she had developed more feelings/feelings for one of the partners, is also possible. Another is that Jason was family, and she hated going to these sport events with her man, and didn't bother to hide it.

Cheating betrays trust. Simple as that. The reasons it happens, and the excuses, are all secondary. It's a knee-jerk reaction to hearing about cheaters, and yeah, it's emotion-driven. On the other hand, I think the spying is also pretty rotten, and I'm not going to sugar-coat the fact that that is an invasion of privacy.
 

Marsell

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Grouchy Imp said:
If this lass hadn't been texting another fella this guy would be rightly slated for intruding on this woman's privacy and reading her private messages without her knowledge or consent, but now because she was caught doing something wrong then he's a 'good Samaritan' and his actions are defensible? Yeah, not buying it. Regardless of whether those texts were suspicious or innocent, he shouldn't have been reading them in the first place.
somehow i doubt that would be the case if the genders of the people involved where reversed.
and before you flip, NO i dont know the whole story, maybe it IS just a big misunderstanding. and YES, he did have no business reading her phone.
BUT STILL, if you know someone is potentially cheating on someone else and you do nothing about it... your just as bad.
plus if she is cheating, she has some BALLS texting her side guy next to her boyfriend. in a crowded stadium no less.

just super sayin'... 4
 

Secondhand Revenant

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Seems simple enough to me. He should not have looked at her messages first off. But once he has obtained the information he should pass it along. Sure may be nothing, but sounds pretty suspicious. Evidence seems to lean heavily towards cheating. If it's her brother or something then the guy would likely know and it would be fine anyways.
 

Jesterscup

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ThePostalDude said:
somehow i doubt that would be the case if the genders of the people involved where reversed.
and before you flip, NO i dont know the whole story, maybe it IS just a big misunderstanding. and YES, he did have no business reading her phone.
BUT STILL, if you know someone is potentially cheating on someone else and you do nothing about it... your just as bad.
sure and when he beats her because of it were you still right?
 

Marsell

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Jesterscup said:
ThePostalDude said:
somehow i doubt that would be the case if the genders of the people involved where reversed.
and before you flip, NO i dont know the whole story, maybe it IS just a big misunderstanding. and YES, he did have no business reading her phone.
BUT STILL, if you know someone is potentially cheating on someone else and you do nothing about it... your just as bad.
sure and when he beats her because of it were you still right?
WTF?? how did we go from a discussion about snooping and infidelity to domestic abuse?
and if he IS a violent asshole, then the police will get involved and it wont matter cause she'll have a restraining order on him.
most likely he'll just dump her. also, nice use of "when" and not "if"
please dont try to fox news people
 

Adeptus Aspartem

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Jesterscup said:
[

One of the things I love about these forums is the way people will often jump on the moral high ground of what is to them a theoretical situation. In practice these things get vastly more complex, and grey.

I've been in the situation of knowing someone is cheating on someone else, my first course of action is usually speaking to the 'cheater' and having a full and frank discussion. At best you then give them the chance to come clean ( which will almost always lead to a better situation than you informing their partner without any discussion ). Thats probably as far as I can go without actually being in the situation.

As for strangers? no, no , no no way... uh-huh what seems 'morally' right from the outside can have unintended results from lack of information. Perhaps he already knows, perhaps he is the type that may resort to violence ( see now you've just put yourself in danger), perhaps he's violent ( you've just put her in danger), perhaps she is violent, and you may have put him in danger. I could go on....

It comes down to this, when you don't know a situation, you can't possibly know what the correct thing to do is. If 'husband beats his 'cheating wife' and sends her to hospital for something that may be innocent, how morally right are you then?
It's not complex and not grey at all.
You just see certain possiblities and expect the worst. I see that i've knowledge about something that's possibly very hurtful to this guy and thus not informing him is failure to render assistance.
I'm not sure if you read the OP completly. He didn't just wrote him: "Hey, your girl is cheating on you" but told him "Hey, there's something fishy going on, you might wanna check that out".

If one of them becomes violent towards his spouse, that's not my wrong doing. That's a their respective misbehavior and not a reason to just look away.
Even less if you put yourself in danger. That's just lack of civil courage.
 
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BloatedGuppy said:
Except the hypothetical he in this obviously fabricated scenario didn't "happen to see". In the "further explanations" segment below, Imaginary Bro hears the woman make a supervillain comment, and the combination of this + alcohol convinced him her phone texting must immediately be monitored.
he wasn't monitoring it for "OHH CLARICE, I MUST HAVE A PEESKIE AT YOUR NAUGHTY NAUGHTY TEXTS." he was monitoring it because she just publicly embarassed the shit out of the guy she was with, and, with context, noticed she was texting another guy.


Also, next time you're at a sporting event or theater, please, try to read the phone of the person in front of you. The entire concept behind stadium seating is that the people sitting in front of you are NOT in your sight line, so that they're not obscuring your vision of the even you ostensibly paid to see. If your "wandering eyes" just happen to capture vast swaths of someone's personal texts, you were making a deliberate choice to read them. It wasn't an accident.

Oh, and I call 100% bullshit. Clearly I cannot prove it, but I often a guarantee if you caught some random reading your phone over your shoulder, or a loved one's phone, you wouldn't just shrug and carry on.
Actually most theaters I'm in make it brutally obvious to see someone being on their phone or not, some of them have the slightly angled chairs but most of them are made so it's easy to see if someone is munching on some popcorn or whatever they are doing with their hands. Idk, maybe I capture alot more than the average person when I see something, but it's quite easy with the way most screens backlights work now a days to catch a glimpse of a conversation and completely see everything.

you're welcome to call bullshit all you want, but I really don't care, if she wants something to be private then she should go to a private area to contact whoever she is needing to contact privately. I've had plenty of friends read my texts over my shoulder to give me a "ha, texting smileys to *insert girls name here*?!?!? lol softcore fagg" and I just shrugged and carried on.


Sure. Why are you bringing gender into it at all?
In other places of the internet, that it's already exploded with the fury of 1000 suns, gender of the parties has been brought up shit tons of times, and it was even brought up after you quoting me, which is why I said it. (In fact, you had inferred before that what if he went home to abuse her, why would you assume he is the abuser and not her as well?)


Did I assume he was a wife beater? For heavens sake gmaverick. I said I lacked ALL information about their circumstances. Which means I'm engaging in a complete LACK of assumptions. Which is why I've repeatedly said the correct course of action is to leave the two of them the fuck alone.
no, you want them to be left the fuck alone because you hate the idea of someone's privacy being invaded in a public space, not because of any information given.



So that's the only way to violate someone's privacy then?

no, don't make it black and white just like i'm not trying to make cheating black and white either.


I don't go through it on any basis, and for like the fifty-fifth fucking time, I am not arguing about the naivety of expecting privacy, I'm arguing about the ethical ramifications of Imaginary Bro's actions. I'm starting to get the feeling a LOT of people on this forum actively engage in reading people's phones over their shoulders, and are pushing back against the statement it's a shitty thing to do.
Shitty thing of him to do? Sure,yes,creepy,bad,wrong,badwrong,badong (hope you get the reference on the last one)

But what did he do with the information afterwards? he attempted to help another person from being used and led on for possibly a lifetime.

so to me, him presenting the information to the hurt party in this case (that embarassment in public is worth more than enough to call him the hurt party) outweighs him being a ballbag and creeping on someone while they are texting.





BloatedGuppy said:
See, my eyes go where I want them to go. That's how eyes generally work. If I want to see a thing, I look at it. If I don't want to, I don't look at it. I don't accidentally read pages of a book because someone has it open near me, and I don't accidentally read pages of texts because someone is texting near me. If your eyes are doing this I suggest a quick visit to an opthamologist is in order.
once again, unless you close your eyes every time you move them from point to point, you are going to collect data that you don't necessarily care for in the slightest. (ergo, how I accidentally check out a dude's butt when I was merely looking up after tying my shoe.) If you don't absorb any of this, then we are worlds apart in what our vision takes in apparently.




The scenario you've outlined here is entirely different from the one presented in this particular imaginary clickbait story.
I hadn't acquired the extra information posted by the guy before writing the original post, so yes, there was additional context given afterwards.

Entirely fake.
at this point, it's fake as we can want or not want it to be, however if we are using this guys word as information, the guy who posted this does have tickets to the lions games (in one of his facebook photos from way before this story was posted he was selling tickets he had to the lions game, so take that for what it's worth I suppose.)

Not the equivalence I was illustrating. I'm asking if you think having strangers review your personal information, and without any context beyond what they see make snap decisions based on their own morality and interfere in your personal affairs accordingly. What if the person behind you was a devout Christian who disapproved of your partying? Or a "social justice bogeyman" who disapproved of your language? Or any of a vast panoply of people who felt the need to impose judgments on their PERCEPTION of your life based on a snapshot of text messages they happened to feel like spying on?

Alas, we already established "you'd be fine with it".
well that entirely depends on what we define as "personal". I don't define random text conversations as personal, I just take it as something you said at some point, not something like your SSN, bank account numbers, drivers license #, email and password, etc..

"devout christian"

I'll laugh at the utter horror on their face, to be certain. and a social justice boogeyman would be a personal favorite, I'd text just about every dirty word in the english language just to see even a slight reaction, because as we know, words man, they break bones.

If someone wants to judge me on a snapshot of something (pro tip: this happens all the time regardless, both good and bad, fucks given? hardly.) then that's their problem, not mine.

So "vague language to an unidentified third party that could hypothetically indicate infidelity" = "impending murder or threat to my personal safety" now, does it? Shall I quote "false equivalence" to you, or shall we just write this one off as a bad example?
It was false equivalence indeed, but as someone else who quoted me pointed out, those things could both be taken out of context, and there have been times people literally have stepped in to say something (I've both seen this in person and reading about it before.) because they lacked any context on the situation.


I'm not ignoring context AT ALL. I'm the person pointing out that no one HAS ANY.
how is there ZERO context based off the situation given? based off what was said, and what ensued, how is there NO probability on anyone's actions in the scenario? this is over a 3 hour period, possibly even longer if the people had gotten there early (which most people do typically)




Yes, I understand cheating is a boogity-boogity man for a lot of people on these forums, we've had threads on it in the past. Here, I'll give you some examples of cheaters I've known.

1) Guy whose wife hadn't had sex with him in over 7 years. Didn't want a divorce because of the kids. Wanted to feel a human touch. Made a connection with someone they worked with.

2) Young girl whose relationship was in a death spiral. Guy was both physically and emotionally abusive. When he found out she'd slept with someone else, he tried to choke her. Bystanders had to intervene.

3) Two people in an "open relationship". Once the open part started actually being expressed, guy had second thoughts. Woman didn't want to break off the thing she'd started immediately. Guy got extremely upset. Almost tore their relationship apart.

4) Woman who fell in love with her husband's best friend after her husband ballooned up to 275 lbs from 200 following their wedding.
1) give and take, that's not a relationship, that's two separated individuals living together, and his kids shouldn't have a problem with their parent wanting to be happy, I know I'd be perfectly happy for my parents if they wanted to divorce and find someone else.

2) So instead of leaving the relationship like the person should have, they thought it would be better to go behind that persons back instead and cheat on said crazy person? mistakes were made before the douchey abusive person had a breakdown, good thing that happened in public so people could intervene.

3) that isn't "cheating" in the sense most of us are talking about, however apparently it "almost" tore their relationship apart, so I'm assuming they are still together, and for the better then.

4) as most people are shallow, she didn't marry a whale, so when he became one the whole "give and take" in the relationship tipped, however she still should have ended it before cheating.


All of those people were guilty of cheating. By the definition of the people on this forum, they are all "dirtbag scumdick cheating fuckfaces". Because "cheating" is always 100% black and white. Because we own our partners like property. Because monogamy isn't something that needs to be worked on, it's a constant state of being you have to willfully abandon. Because relationships can be left to wither and expire and you can still trust that the other person will be completely faithful to you, because sexual fidelity is the ONLY thing that must never be abandoned.

Or you know, it's complicated, and a lot of factors are involved, and we should mind our own business if we're not close enough to the situation to understand all the variables.
Yes, they are all scummy as fuck for making those decisions, rather than being honest about it. I'm not saying that cheating is black and white, but more often then not, there are decisions you could have made before that point to highly avoid the cheating that was entirely in the hands of the cheater.


Because we own our partners like property.
citation to where I inferred that. Please.

Guppy, Do you think your significant other/partner/wife/husband should be honest with you? Do you think that almost all cases of cheating could be solved with the cheating parties simply being honest with their partners at some point before hand? Obviously they care little for their partners opinion at this point, which is quite arrogant to lead them on then, so why hold back the lies at all? More often then not, it's because they are a scummy douchebag fuckface cuntwad.

I feel like we've gotten away from the story at hand now...and I typically don't have much energy at all to continue debating with people over long things, I just hate cheating with a blinding furious passion, and yes, if any of my friends are cheating on or are being cheated on, you bet your ass I let them know or make them fess up and stop that shit right away, hell it happened less than a month ago actually, and they broke up a day later and now both of them are doing leagues better than what they were before that point, so I got way too heated when I saw people defending this person initially, as it was textbook cheater behavior. Sorry if it felt like I was attacking you, just was provoking dialogue to get answers.
 

BloatedGuppy

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This is getting long, so I'm going to be cutting significantly. If you think I'm dropping something crucial or something you dearly wanted a reply to, you're going to need to let me know.

gmaverick019 said:
I've had plenty of friends read my texts over my shoulder to give me a "ha, texting smileys to *insert girls name here*?!?!? lol softcore fagg" and I just shrugged and carried on.
Yep, that's right. Friends. Now imagine it's a stranger. A great, burly, sweating, bearded stranger. And he's leaning over your shoulder, and reading for hours. Do you get up at any point? Move away? Cover your phone? Ask why he's doing what he's doing? Or simply accept it as part and parcel of daily life?

Experiment...walk up to strangers on the street/subway and start reading their texts over their shoulder. The larger and more imposing the individuals, the better. If they complain, state that you are in a public place, and laugh at the presumption that they should be enjoying privacy while texting. Let me know what ensues.

gmaverick019 said:
In fact, you had inferred before that what if he went home to abuse her, why would you assume he is the abuser and not her as well?
I was giving an example of additional context the Peeping Tom has no access to, which is why leaping to conclusions about the private lives of strangers is wrong. If you find the narrative more palatable if she is the abuser in this scenario, by all means, go to it. It makes no difference to my argument.

gmaverick019 said:
Because you hate the idea of someone's privacy being invaded in a public space, not because of any information given.
I dislike the idea.

I also greatly dislike leaping to conclusions based on insufficient or non-existent evidence, although I understand it's become something of a hobby around this forum lately.

gmaverick019 said:
so to me, him presenting the information to the hurt party in this case (that embarassment in public is worth more than enough to call him the hurt party) outweighs him being a ballbag and creeping on someone while they are texting.
So, ends justify the means, yes?

gmaverick019 said:
If you don't absorb any of this, then we are worlds apart in what our vision takes in apparently.
Apparently, yes. That sounds terrible. I'm not constantly reading pages of information by accident, I'm not constantly checking out random dude butts every time I tie my shoe, and I'm not accidentally reading a football game's worth of texts because someone was sat near me at a football game. I have no idea how I'd ever concentrate on anything.

gmaverick019 said:
at this point, it's fake as we can want or not want it to be, however if we are using this guys word as information
It had the ring of "You won't believe what happened next!" clickbait nonsense long before the additional context was provided, which catapulted it into laughably implausible. Human beings don't talk like that. Imaginary social constructs do, but not actual human beings.

gmaverick019 said:
Guppy, Do you think your significant other/partner/wife/husband should be honest with you?
Do I prefer it in most circumstances? Yes. Do I imagine she is honest with me 100% of the time? No. Am I honest with her 100% of the time? No. Have I dated someone who made "100% honesty all of the time" a priority? Yes. Was it as big a fucking disaster as it sounds? Yes.

If she cheated on me, would I forgive her? Depending on the circumstances, probably. Have I ever cheated on her, or anyone else? No. Have I ever been cheated on? Yes. Was it painful? Yes. Do I think the person who did it was "scummy douchebag fuckface cuntwad"? Nope. She's one of the most forthright, honorable people I've ever met in my life. She grew up in near constant physical and sexual abuse. She had serious issues with commitment phobia and emotional attachment that continue to this day. That's context. Context I couldn't get from reading some text messages over her shoulder. And honestly? Our relationship ended on its own, long after the cheating, and not because of it. I would've rather NOT known. It caused a lot of pain I didn't need to feel.

Does that mean all cheaters are salts of the earth? Of COURSE not. It's just not NEARLY as black and white as people want to make it sometimes.

gmaverick019 said:
I feel like we've gotten away from the story at hand now
That's fine. The story at hand is a pile of bullshit, which is why it has devolved into theoretical discussions.

gmaverick019 said:
I just hate cheating with a blinding furious passion, and yes, if any of my friends are cheating on or are being cheated on, you bet your ass I let them know or make them fess up and stop that shit right away, hell it happened less than a month ago actually, and they broke up a day later and now both of them are doing leagues better than what they were before that point, so I got way too heated when I saw people defending this person initially, as it was textbook cheater behavior. Sorry if it felt like I was attacking you, just was provoking dialogue to get answers.
Evidently, yes. I don't share your moral umbrage, alas. I don't condemn you for it, but I do recommend not engaging in fundamentalist thinking on the subject. Relationships are extremely complicated. People are complicated. Jealousy and possessiveness only gets us so far. People make mistakes. One day one of those people might be you. Easy to say NEVAR if you've never been put in a situation.

In this case, the cartoon woman who mocks her husband's small penis before bursting into maniacal laughter before fiendishly texting her vile lover while Imaginary Bro looks on in consternation probably doesn't deserve a lot of sympathy, but fictional characters designed to be hated seldom do.