hide our infidelity from you, always with this in mind: if you
don’t know about it, it can’t hurt you. We’re pretty confident
that your willingness to be in a relationship with us supersedes
all the things we do that look suspicious, because we know
you’ll work through the suspicion—that it’s more important to
you to be with us in our imperfection than to leave us and be
alone. At least that’s what we’re hoping. And in the beginning,
mostly, you will. But the moment your suspicions turn into a
Law & Order–type investigation, we’re going to lie and deny.
That’s if we care about you.
But if not—if a man doesn’t see you fitting into his life
plan—he won’t even bother with all of the covering up and the
chitchat after he gets found out. He’ll simply tell you that he
was sleeping with someone else because...
You may think this is a cop-out, but it is the reality. It goes
back to the way men judge themselves against each other: I told
you in the introduction and have reiterated elsewhere in the
book that we are defined by who we are, what we do, and how
much we make. And if we haven’t gotten to where we want
and need to be, then we’re not going to be ready to figure out
how settling down with one woman fits into our plans for be-