I have a confession to make: I am the "other woman." I don't mean that I am currently having an affair with someone's husband or that I'm steadily luring someone's boyfriend away from them, but in the time that I have been at Tufts, I have several times entered into the forbidden role of the "other." Allow me to elaborate.
I have found that the romance scene at Tufts consists primarily of two types of interactions: the hookup culture and committed relationships. But for those of us who fall in between (especially those of us who are sick of the former and haven't yet found anyone here who's right for the latter), boundaries sometimes get blurred. Because of the utter lack of a "dating" scene at Tufts, many people fall into the gray area which includes sporadically acting upon attractions. This has been the case for me.
Unfortunately, everyone that I've been interested in here at Tufts has fallen into one of three categories: They've either turned out to be totally wrong for me, are the object of affection of one of my friends, or are involved with somebody else. At this point, one may think that I've fallen into a three and a half semester-long dry spell. Wrong. Instead, I'm ashamed to say, I have become the "other woman." That bitch, that one we all hate and fear. Even I detest people like me.
When I entered into a relationship with my ex-boyfriend, my one condition was that he tell me if he felt like he was going to - or did - cheat on me; I promised to do the same. And remarkably enough, it worked. He went off to college one year before I did. We went through some rough patches, and after several months of fighting it, we decided to make our relationship open due to the many temptations that both of us were being met with. In theory, this was all well and good. However, when I kissed someone a few weeks later, my boyfriend was pretty vocal about his jealousy and the strangeness of knowing that he was now sharing his girlfriend of two years. And I can't deny the sting I felt when he told me he had kissed another girl at a party. There were others in our lives now, and I couldn't help but glare at the culprit next time I went up to visit him at school.
Despite my loathing of cheating and my vows never to do it to someone I'm with, I've fallen victim to the other side. Maybe it's a stroke of bad luck, but I can't help feeling like a complete hypocrite. With the exceptions of a couple of innocent kisses, all of my encounters here at Tufts have been with someone who is, in one way or another, forbidden. Some of the times have been with a friend's crush (which is inevitably followed by tremendous guilt and secret-keeping), but mostly I've been involved with men who are "seeing" someone or have a steady girlfriend. So, some questions come to mind.
First of all, why do I keep doing this? I always (well, almost always) know the position that the guy is in. And my absolute abhorrence of the thought of being in the other girl's shoes turns my stomach. So why do I keep falling into this trap instead of stopping myself before I get both of us into trouble? And second, is this a pattern I'm bound to follow? I want to be attracted to available men, men who can openly be emotional and physical with me. But instead, they're taken, I can't have them, and inevitably I'm catapulted into a position where I can't assert myself and my feelings because I have to keep myself anonymous and our relations secret.
More often than not, these are one-time encounters. But that doesn't make them feel any better. I, as someone who tends to be very strong and confrontational, become speechless due to my fear of being found out, and of hurting myself, the guy, or his girlfriend.
Maybe doing a little "what if" in my head before I get in too deep would stop me, but maybe it wouldn't change a thing except to bring on the feelings of guilt before I actually do anything wrong. Unfortunately, instead of "what if," my current thought process is more that of resenting the existence of the woman the guy is involved with, wishing she was out of the way altogether instead of considering how hurtful my actions would be to her if we were to be found out.
You see, the thing is, we "others" out there aren't trying to be bad people; in fact, we're ultimately looking for the same kinds of relationships and experiences that most people are. Unfortunately, we managed to get mixed up with the wrong people, those who should be off the market for us. Should I have less faith in romance because many of the people I'm attracted to are "forbidden," but give in to temptation anyway? Perhaps, but I'm pretty sure that lowering my expectations won't lessen the numbers of "others" out there or stop people from cheating in less-than-perfect relationships.
The truth is that many relationships aren't completely fulfilling, and although some people have the strength to stick it out anyway, many don't. The "others" are really the "fillers," the ones that satisfy the cravings. It's unfortunate that it has to work that way, but until all those "involved" people find someone who sufficiently meets their physical and emotional needs, "others" will always be there, and you might even end up as one yourself.
Sara Franklin is a sophomore majoring in history. She can be reached via e-mail at sara.franklin@tufts.edu
