The first time I heard the term “affair dating” was back in 2015 when the Ashley Madison website was hacked and over 60 gigabytes of personal data was released. Soon, people began poring over the details of information released in hopes of finding celebrity or politician profiles. Most people had never heard of Ashley Madison and were shocked that there was a site dedicated to helping married people have successful affairs.
The truth is, there will always be married people who cheat.
As long as marriage exists, so will cheating.
It may be controversial to say this, but cheating on your significant other doesn’t mean you don’t love them. It means you need more than what you’re receiving at the moment.
Getting caught doesn’t mean you don’t love your spouse, it means you’re a careless idiot.
So what do I deem a successful affair? If the affair ends and no one got an std, got pregnant, caught feelings or got caught in the act, then congratulations, you are successfully affair dating!
1. If you find yourself obsessing over one person in particular, then it’s time to take a step back and re-evaluate what is it you are looking for and what you can handle. Just because you would love to have a sexy dip on the side doesn’t mean that you should go out and get one, especially if you are someone who finds it hard to keep things casual and light. Relax…this is supposed to be fun, remember? Learn to go with the flow because you never know where something will take you. If you find that it is too stressful, then you know that affair dating is not for you.
Focus on having temporary fun, and the rest will follow.
2. If you are in the midst of affair dating, then your marriage is obviously lacking something. So don’t limit yourself to your usual “type” of person you go for. In other words, don’t be a doppel-banger! See who else is out there and experiment while you can. Don’t start an affair with someone who is just like your spouse. What the fuck is the fun in that?
3. You need to approach affair dating as something temporary and have clear boundaries from the start. Are you looking to have fun on the side or are you looking to blow up your marriage? Be honest with yourself. Once you know for sure that you are only seeking temporary fun, then always remind yourself about that. Don’t fucking fall in love or lust! Always remind yourself that this is temporary fun and you are not to begin an actual relationship. What if you meet someone that you would leave your partner for? You better be sure that you are truly unhappy in your relationship and not just basking in the glow of infatuation.
Would I suggest having an affair with a friend or joining an affair dating website?
When the Ashley Madison breach occurred, not only was 60 gigs of personal date compromised, but other information slowly came out as profiles and emails were more thoroughly looked into.
Annalee Newitz, editor-in-chief of Gizmodo, analyzed the leaked data. She initially found that only roughly 12,000 of the 5.5 million registered female accounts were used on a regular basis, equal to 3 in every 1000, or less than 1%. The remaining were used only one time, the day they were registered. She also found that a very high number of the women’s accounts were created from the same IP address, suggesting there were many fake accounts.
She found women checked email messages very infrequently: for every 1 time a woman checked her email, 13,585 men checked theirs. Only 9,700 of the 5 million female account had ever replied to a message, compared to the 5.9 million men who would do the same.
She concluded that, “The women’s accounts show so little activity that they might as well not be there”. In a subsequent article the following week Newitz acknowledged that she had “misunderstood the evidence” in her previous article, and that her conclusion that there were few females active on the site had actually been based on data recording “bot” activities in contacting members. She notes that “we have absolutely no data recording human activity at all in the Ashley Madison database dump from Impact Team. All we can see is when fake humans contacted real ones.”
Claire Brownell suggested that the Turing test could possibly be passed by the women-imitating chatbots that fooled millions of men into buying special accounts.
Equipped with the knowledge of what many dating sites are capable of in order to attract customers (it is a business, after all) I would say to steer clear of affair dating sites.
If you can’t pull your side honey in person, then you don’t really deserve one, do you?
Have you been cheated on and are trying to figure out if they are worth keeping?
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This article originally appeared on Love Coach Advice
