The stuff about the Ashley Madison
website leak got me thinking in a completely different direction than
most people. The news has been filled with gossip about what
celebrities are on the list, or fear mongering about whether or not
you have been outed as seeking an affair.
Oh, I guess I should back up – in
case you did not know, Ashley Madison is a web site, sort of like a
dating web site, for people looking to have affairs. You register,
upload a profile, and see if anyone wants to step out with you...
Seems that a hacker got into their
database and stole the email addresses from every single profile.
Many people used their mail addresses linked to their names,
brettanningson@ for example – but nonetheless if you know your
significant others email accounts you can check out online whether or
not they strayed.
32 million email addresses to be
precise.
So this is what got me thinking... do
you know how many married couples there are in North America?
Although it probably changes daily – especially after this leak –
but we are talking somewhere in the vicinity of 59 million married
couples in the US while there are somewhere around nine and a half
million in Canada.
So we all know that only about 50 % of
marriages last. Now it seems that 50% of the remaining are having
affairs. (I know, there is overlap there – but go along with the
reasoning because it is a staggering amount of people arranging
affairs on ONE dating site... so how many are doing it at work, on
the bus, or with their ex?)
The morally outraged all immediately
started yelling, “What is wrong with people?!”
I want us to look at the other side,
“What is wrong with marriage!?”
Because this is where I suspect the
problem lies...
We live in a world that is getting more
and more private and small. Groups of friends are diminishing and
marriage has become THE place where you are supposed to find love,
support, companionship etc.
(and yes, people who have affairs are lonely. That is the whole thing. They are not morally bankrupt or sexually deviant, they are looking for someone to make them feel less lonely)
Somewhere along the way society bought into the fairy tale that one day I will meet the one person, the soul mate, the ideal companion, and then I would not need anyone else... ever... then I would never desire another woman or man... then my eyes would not even stray, nor would I feel any desire to share emotional or intimate details with anyone else....
I think most of us can count our friends on one hand. And most of those friends are people we socialize with, not intimate companions on the journey of life....
And this is WRONG!
I cannot be everything for one person, and neither can one person be everything to me. I need someone to complain about work to, I need someone to complain about my spouse to, I need someone to flirt, with when I am out dancing, I need someone to compete with, I need someone I look up to... and the list goes on.... we all need a variety of relationships for a variety of reasons... and we need them with a variety of people.
I have long said that this whole two person and kids lifestyle we have created is crazy making – we should have larger families, multiple partners, many friends, communal living – whatever it takes to get to a point where we create a world of fulfillment instead of loneliness.
This is what I am taking from the Ashley Madison leak.
There are more than 32 million people out there in North America that feel fundamentally lonely. And until we change relationships to be more than they currently are – this is just going to continue, and that is just sad.
