Her name was Kat. Probably still is. She was smart, model-hot and funny — a fashion designer who digs ’80s cartoons and her hometown Phoenix Suns. Perfection. We dated for two months.
Then, in 72 lightning-quick hours, I cheated, confessed, dropped the L-word, then broke up with her — and lost my integrity.
Years later, looking back, I realized we men just get flummoxed by conflicting principles. We need checks and balances. Rules. And so my ethically bankrupt actions spawned “The Maxims of Manhood: 100 Rules Every Real Man Must Live By.”
As a result of the mistakes I made in those 72 hours, the following four principles were born:
Maxim 90: You don’t cheat.
But I did. Then I agonized over whether I should come clean. So I took Kat to a bar in Williamsburg with the intention of telling her…something.
“Jeff. Check it out,” nudged Kat, pointing out a beefy man with a tiny Chihuahua. She laughed.
As the bartender poured us Guinness and she innocently giggled over the pint-size pup, I agonized over whether to say:
“I cheated. We should break up.”
“I cheated. Please forgive me.”
“We should break up.”
“You look great in that skirt.”
Four options. None of them terrific. As a guilt-ravaged, first-time cheater, I wrestled with Truth vs. Lie. Should I be honest, preserving our trust? Or does that merely unburden my guilt, inflicting her with pain?
“I need to tell you…something,” I say after chugging my beer in one needy gulp.
My armpits dripped and then I did the only smooth, rational thing: I blurted it all out.
A long, dreadful pause.
She grabbed my hand, squeezed it and then looked at me without blinking to say, “I’m hurt. I’m disappointed. But we’ll work through this.”
Maxim 23: You only fear one thing. (Commitment.)
Wait, what? I thought we were breaking up? Or did I want forgiveness? I still had no clue.
We left the bar and her shock gave way to anger. She cried some, I apologized. She looked through me, I apologized. She bear-hugged me, I apologized. She was strong, I was weak. And then she kept repeating, “I just want you to…fight for me.”
I didn’t know what that meant. But I figured since I had done something so despicable, I would redeem myself by being a stand-up guy and bringing out the big guns.
So I dropped the L-Bomb.
“Kat…I…I love you.”
And in that moment I did. I meant it. Completely, deeply, truly. Probably. Maybe.
Maxim 21: Use every four-letter word but one.
A smile. A flicker of hope. She pressed both hands against my face, kissed me on the mouth, hard.
“That makes me so happy,” she whispered. “Maybe something good came from this.”
The next day, on our prescheduled trip to Atlantic City, I ruminated. Did I really love her? Wasn’t our relationship doomed? And wasn’t I thinking of breaking up earlier?
As she strolled down the boardwalk with an unreadable expression, I knew this wasn’t right. We weren’t right and couldn’t be right.
So I broke up with her.
It was the worst-ish moral failing of my dating career.
I never cheated again. I’m (mostly) reformed and at least I’ve learned my lesson, including, as inspired by Kat’s amusement with the Chihuahua, Maxim 94: Your dog must be larger than a toaster.
Jeff Wilser’s “The Maxims of Manhood: 100 Rules Every Real Man Must Live By” comes out May 18.