It’s not cheating, it’s dating

So, picture this.

I’m at Dodgers stadium taking in a baseball game with a couple of friends. People have put down their beer to sing the US National anthem, hand to heart.

My friends, a tall brunette who has never come across anything worth his reverence, and a shorter brunette with hands softer than a kind grandmother and a sense of humour that would disturb Vlad the Impaler, tell me to stand for the anthem but it feels too weird. I’m supposed to feel patriotism at a Dodgers — Diamondbacks game? For a country I’ve lived in less than a year? I’ve lived in France my whole life and never touched my hand to heart.

The game is long but the company is good. It’s my first time at the stadium, my first baseball game, my first forty. A week ago I didn’t even know what a forty* was. It’s a night to record for my future grandchildren. But don’t ask me who won.

Later, tipsy and giggly, I’m making out with the tall brunette as he serenades me with stories of age-old gore and violence, from the Bible to Ovid to the Marquis de Sade, to Led Zeppelin. Another first; I’ve never made out with an American.

A few days later I call him from a party, drunk (I discovered much of America through half-mast eyelids). He comes, and we’re off. There’s more Bible talk, most of which I’ve forgotten but I remember how hard I laughed that night. What can I say, scatological gore is hilarious (when drunk).

Still more days later, we’re hanging out. Him and I and mutual friends. (Him comma I, not him-and-I). He mentions he’s going on a date with an OkCupid prospect. I remember her — I helped him with the profile, and he’s been on a date with her already. But, before me.

Although I have no serious intentions, I had assumed I came after her, not with her.

Cheating is a massive deal-breaker for me. I will not cheat, be cheated on or with. I tell him as much.

“What are you talking about? No one’s cheating on anyone. She and I aren’t exclusive.”

I don’t understand too many of those words. Dating*? Exclusive*?

This is how I see it: he spends time with her romantically + she got there first = he’s cheating on her. Simple.

“No,” my friends say. Every last one. I asked all of them. Some of them don’t like the tall brunette, they have no reason to protect him. (And I’m not aware of a Yankee code of secrecy).

“You definitely should not be with him…but…he’s not cheating.”

Americans are weird. Oh, so weird. But I’m the minority. It’s up to me to adapt, right? I will not be the Ugly Frenchy. So I give it another try. This time he talks about Nabokov’s Lolita, which he owns but hasn’t yet read. All I can think is:

What if I get an STD? Am I supposed to “date” other people, too? Does she know about me? What does she look like? Why am I not enough?

One night he bows out of a get-together because he’s out with her. I can’t have fun. Why do I care? I don’t want commitment — not the forever you and I kind, but I had expected to be faithfully uncommitted, as Gwyneth Paltrow might say.

In France, you see, dating is not a concept we know. We don’t even have a word for it. In France, getting together with someone is a 2-step process.

Step 1: Meet the person. At school, among friends, in a club, pub or grubhub. Just be in their vicinity.

Step 2: Your lips must meet their consensually.

There, you’re now together. Whether you are just sleeping together or committed ’til death do one of you eliminate. You’re together. It’s not just France.

Here’s a story: This Russian girl had been dating an American for a couple of weeks, and things were going well but she had a feeling she wasn’t the only one. She didn’t know how to broach the topic so she asked a friend for advice. Her friend, an American said:

“Well, have you had the Talk* yet?”

“What Talk?”

“To see where you are and what you are.”

“Why would we need to talk?”

“Because without the Talk, you’re nothing. He probably is seeing people.”

What?! And don’t get me started on all the ways Americans can be together: exclusive, dating, seeing each other, seeing other people, hanging out, friends with benefits, Netflix and chill, boyfriend/girlfriend (and permutations) and of course, hooking up*, the meaning of which no one can agree on.

Picture a hapless European who only knows together/not together trying to date here. Even Americans can’t figure it out!

I quickly realised that I did need to talk to him. To break up. Even though we weren’t together. In his mind.

I should have left it at baseball.

The Frog’s Lexicon:

dating: the act of trying to find a mate for an amount of time ranging from 1 hour to forever.

exclusive: it’s only cheating if you’re exclusive. Otherwise it’s “seeing what’s out there”.

forty: forty US ounces of beer. 1,200 ml in the rest of the world.

hooking up: something to do bases.

the Talk: something Americans do all the time in relationships to figure out if they’re dating, or exclusive, or hooking up or going to the bathroom.