Love Hurts

Jared Stirland | Assistant Lifestyle Editor | [email protected]

Designed by Ashley Fairborne

Two important qualities of a romantic relationship are emotional and physical

intimacy.  They play a crucial role in the formation of a relationship, and can be the

cause of an end to a relationship.

Each person has their own definition of infidelity based on personal ideology,

and previous experiences with love, sex, romance, and heartbreak. This is the type

of data that self-report surveys are designed to measure – opinions and feelings on

any given topic.

A staff member on the UVU review administered a short survey via

Facebook, in an attempt to determine which was more likely to end a romantic

relationship: emotional or physical infidelity – are some scarlet A’s smaller than

others.

55 percent of the 105 respondents said that they would end a relationship if

their romantic partner cheated on them emotionally, but not sexually. 60 percent

said that they would end a relationship if their romantic partner cheated on them

sexually, one time, but not emotionally. 12 percent admitted to emotionally cheating

on their romantic partner, while 1 percent admitted to sexually cheating on their

romantic partner.

William James, the first American psychologist, coined the term “automatic

sweetheart”, which he defined as a robot or an artificial intelligence (AI) technology

built by man.

James, playing the philosophical matchmaker, said that an individual who

unknowingly fell in love with an “automatic sweetheart”, would easily fall out of love

when told that their significant other was actually a man-made machine.

Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection identifies an

obvious aspect of sex, as a motivational element, for the purpose of reproduction.

An organism is more fit to survive the more it passes on its genes, and to do this,

many organisms must copulate.

For humans, sex is more than just increasing our heart rates to become fit

to survive. It affects our emotions, influences our relationships, and can even

illicit strange thoughts, feelings, and behavior.

There is a neurological phenomenon in which ending a romantic

relationship, whether due to death or a breakup, can cause one’s heart to

physiologically ache. This is a combination of emotional and physical pain. We see

in sci-fi movies that those are two sensations a soulless robot cannot feel, so keep

Siri in the friendzone.

“I have cheated on my wife in terms of repeated masturbation” said one male

survey respondent.

Emotionless infidelity happens through orgasm-focused sexual encounters,

like the easily facilitated one-night stands of Tinder, and websites dedicated to

discreet affairs like ashleymadison.com.

“For me, it depends on the level of intimacy between the two. A friend of the

same gender as my partner may provide a support that I could not. And a friend of a

different gender may provide support as well without maintaining intimacy. But if

your significant other is sharing things with them that they wouldn’t share with you

such as goals, hopes, dreams, frustrations, experiences, pet names, etc then it

becomes emotional cheating. Emotional intimacy is the key, for me. Not just support

and sentiment.” said one female survey respondent.

Sexless infidelity happens through intimate, social encounters between two

individuals who build an emotionally romantic relationship with someone other

than their romantic partner.

Healthy, monogamous relationships between two homosapiens, includes a

balance of both physical and emotional intimacy. This creates the possibility of

romantic love, which consists of two human sweethearts with souls, faithfully

committing to one another – an idealistic concept like socialism, vulnerable to failure

when applied.

Old-school romanticists like Taylor Swift, Nicholas Sparks, and Karl Marx

might argue vulnerability is a necessary sacrifice when falling in love, because that

risk allows happiness to be equally dispersed between all parties.

Statistics are malleable, so the decision of which is worse, physical or

emotional cheating, is a democratic one, to be made subjectively. Only you can

decide.

* The opinions expressed here by the columnist are his own.