Canada’s network blackout on Friday, July 8th, 2022, was another rude awakening for people who rely on the internet. Debit card payments were shut down, bank machines stopped giving cash, businesses were stopped in their tracks, and WFH peeps on Rogers were cut off from the hive. People couldn’t use their phones, text, or send emails, and their cable TV was shut down.
And cheaters couldn’t cheat.
And that got me thinking about how much better cheating is today, and how smartphones revolutionized it in so many ways. I suppose cheating’s been around for a while because even Moses was kvetching about it in his Ten Commandments —
IX. Don’t fuck your neighbor’s wife
— Moses, Ten Commandments
I don’t think it’s an accident that Moses (or, like some fiery bush, or whatever) chose the word neighbor rather than —
IX. Don’t fuck the dude in the next village’s wife
— Moses, Ten Commandments
We like to think that the internet has made the world smaller, and maybe it has in some ways. A world without the internet and the communications systems that rely on it is far smaller. Think about it.
Without a communications system, your ability to communicate is restricted to the distance your voice can travel. Your ability to find someone to communicate with is only as far as your eyes can see. Your engagement bubble is now easily measured in dozens or hundreds of feet.
When you’re looking for stranger sex in a bubble that size, you aren’t going to get many chances to hook up with women beyond it, hence neighbor. Big Mo knew what he, er god, was talking about.
How would it work?
Seriously, who wouldn’t see wifey pulling out the driveway alone on the donkey and wonder WTF? People would be like, “she’s totally being coveted, dude.”
And how would it even work? Would she know where to go? When? What if she’s on her period? Then what? If you could get a message to her, what would it look like?
Meet me on the next full moon, by the stream with two trees at the crossing if you be cleaneth, if not, then on the waxing crescent. Oh, forget not! Don’t go to the crossing with three trees like the last time, lol
What they wouldn’t see is a quick fuck in the manger at feeding time or a hand-job in the hen house while collecting eggs. And who are you going to do that with? Your neighbor’s wife, daughter, mother, mother-in-law, slave girl, servant.
Of course, Mo didn’t consider that the man of the house might be copping off with the neighbor dude, so no worries there.
What’s wrong with fucking the neighbor?
I’m going to say — nothing!
If you can ignore the huge risk associated with being caught because you’re never really alone in your communications bubble. Everyone in the ’hood and their donkey is in it, and no one’s eyes are distracted by screens. And when there’s no TMZ.com, the next best thing is watching your neighbor fuck up and then telling everyone not to tell anyone about it.
You would almost think Moses should have given this commandment —
XI. Mindeth your own business, asshole
— Moses, best-selling author of Ten Commandments, in Ten More Commandments
Of course, the solution to this problem was death by stoning, so there was some incentive to not fucking your neighbor. My observation here is our laws and punishments are designed to address what people do, rather than what they don’t do. We killed people for cheating because they cheat.
If people didn’t cheat, we wouldn’t need Ten Commandments, but only nine.
So WTF does all this mean Teresa?
My lover lost all communications for most of the day during the blackout. There was no good morning message, and then there were emails for a while, and then none. And then texts came back late at night for half an hour, and then nothing until the next morning.
We live three miles apart. Before the mid-90s we’d have never connected. I wouldn’t know he was looking and he wouldn’t know I was looking. Maybe I’d keep my extracurriculars out of the neighborhood, but where would I go? Work?
Everyone at work is watching too, and most of the same risks are present as banging the neighbor. Personal ads? Um, did you ever see those pathetic things? Horrible.
No, I’d have never met my lover, and might not have cheated. If I did, that person would have had to have been inside my communication bubble and I would have managed the risk that came with it. And when it ended and I was still looking at living next to you for the rest of my life? No thanks.
Takeaway
What the blackout showed me was how hard cheating was before the internet. It was a recognized threat to society four thousand years ago so much so people were on the lookout to guard against it. They still are today.
What the internet has done is expanded the communications bubbles far enough to reduce the risk to cheaters. Is this destabilizing society? I don’t think so. Getting laid occasionally makes me so much happier than never getting laid.
And when I’m happy, you’re probably going to be happy❤️
Want to learn more? Check out Lesson Three in The Scarlett Letter’s Adultery Academy —
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© Teresa J. Conway, 2022