Ashley MADison MADness

Folks have been pinging me to write about this Ashley MADison “MADness.” I have resisted because I know that — as usual — my thoughts aren’t going to be popular. What’s new, right? But, I do know try to stay away from women who have been scorned (and aren’t over it — because I’ve been cheated on in the past and am so over it); to stay away from religion; and to stay away from saying that someone’s child is less than perfect — PARTICULARLY because I am NOT the queen of delicacy.

The problem is, I know that most of you think that I should be outraged at the millions of people who were enrolled in this service; but frankly, I just don’t give a shit. If you haven’t picked up a trend in this blog, I don’t frequently judge other folks or their doings.

For one thing, I am too damn egocentric. I am so preoccupied with what’s happening in my life that I typically am not concerned with what’s happening in other folks’ homes—honestly. Blame it on me being an only child, but I am absolutely enraptured by what’s happening with family, my friends and me. Frankly, I can hardly keep up or keep it straight.

Secondly, I figure that we don’t know what in the heck was going on in these folk’s lives to drive them to such a site. Of course, some of them are just dirty, stanky dogs. But what about the rest of the millions? Perhaps their mate gave them permission; perhaps they were in an open marriage; perhaps their lover had cheated on them or they hadn’t been intimate with their mate for 15 years; perhaps their mate was in the penitentiary. Hell, perhaps the person is just a cheating pig, but the mate loves him or her and stays anyway. Is that my business?  What about the people who are married to someone with debilitating medical conditions? One woman was quoted in Business Insider saying that she was a mother trapped in a loveless marriage with a man suffering from cancer. “I went on AM out of loneliness and despair, and found friendship, both male and female, with others trapped in terrible marriages trying to do right by their children,” she wrote. “I expect to be ridiculed by colleagues, to lose my job, and to be publicly shamed.”
What an honest person will tell you is that anybody who has been in a relationship for a long time, has been through some tough shit. I’m not saying infidelity necessarily; but couples who have stayed together have weathered some storms that no one knows about. It’s too bad that everyone now has to know about some of these couples’ private storms. I think that many couples who would’ve stayed together if their infidelity had been discovered privately, won’t now because of the public humiliation. Forgiveness is harder when you have an audience.

There is just something wrong in taking joy out of seeing others fall. Two people have committed suicide since the Ashley Madison hack. Divorces have already been announced. People reportedly are being blackmailed. I don’t know how I can be happy about that. Is it supposed to bring me some moral superior satisfaction? I don’t feel as if the hackers are heroes. I actually don’t feel as if they hacked the site for altruistic reasons. Let’s be honest, real scumbags have cheated and will cheat again irrespective of whether AM even exists. The ones who may have sought out the site in desperation (‘cause let’s be honest—it’s plenty easy to cheat without the site) are suffering in ways, and have families who are suffering in ways in which I simply can’t find one shred of happiness.

I guess that’s what happens when you are actually happy yourself.