Cheating and Soccer (completely unrelated to each other)

So I read this book (The Sky is Everywhere, by Jandy Nelson. READ IT. I'm not even kidding. It's like Sarah Dessen meets John Green--okay, so maybe adding John in there is extreme, but still. It's GOOD). A really, really, good book. I've read a couple really, really good books lately. I love reading good books. On a side, I'm possibly developing an inferiority complex in regard to my own work.

But that's not what this decidedly purposeful blog is going to be about. I feel the need to add a disclaimer but I don't know what said disclaimer should announce. So I'll just give it to you. I don't even know where to start or how to go about this but I do have something to say so I'll just say it.

Cheating is bad. I know that. And I mean the unfaithful, kiss/have sex with another person who is not your significant other kind of cheating, to be clear. I'm not saying you should forgive someone for cheating* and I'm definitely not saying you should stay with a cheater but if someone is trying to give you an explanation, I think you should listen.

I've never been in one such situation and I can't know how I'd react but whenever I read or see a fictitious character completely shut someone off based on anything from walking in on the person with another person to hearing it from someone else, I can't help but lose respect for that character. If you ever loved a person or even liked them at all, wouldn't you give them a chance to tell their story? Why do we have to be dramatic and tell people we never want to see them again?

I'm not saying that cheating is cool. I already said it's not. If someone agrees to be with you and only you, you deserve better if they break that agreement. But please don't be silly enough to forget that there are multiple sides to every story. And what's the worst thing that could happen if you hear out the cheater? Your broken heart hurts a little bit more and then you make an informed decision to never speak to the cheater? I think that's better than hot headedly writing them off forever. But again, this is all theory.

Anyway, maybe this quasi rant wasn't any better than my sleep deprived musings but I felt the need to get this off my chest.

I feel the need to mention something about the World Cup because it happened today but I don't really have anything. I think losing sucks and I'm really sorry that Netherlands lost (or that anyone had to lose, in fact). I know losing sucks. When I was a kid, I cried at the end of every Monopoly game.** If it makes you feel any better, Scotland didn't even qualify (have I ever mentioned that my dad was born in Scotland?). And not getting a chance sucks almost as much as being second place. Or maybe more.

*can I just say randomly that I find this a word inadequate? You cheat on your diet, you cheat at Monopoly but cheating on a person? I guess if you have written rules to your relationship it could work but do we have no other word we can use? I put forward butt-faced miscreant. But that's two words unless you count the hyphen as a word break.

**Which, by the way, was invented by a Quaker who wanted to demonstrate the pitfalls of capitalism.