It's Not What You Think

Back in my days working for St. Louis University, I got to roam the campus as part of my job. I've been to the Dean's office, cleaned up porn spam for Jesuits, and accidentally walked into an autopsy lab. You just see shit. A lot of it is accidental.

Following freshman-week, the quad was packed with young coeds heading to the pool. My work partner and I overheard a heated conversation between two students, in which one of them was obviously accused of cheating. We chuckled knowingly about it. I mean, who among us hasn't been on the wrong end of anything from a lingering glance to a greater indiscretion?

My partner, Justin, related a story in which he had gone to a party and managed to hook up with a girl that he didn't otherwise know. Most stories end right there, but it turns out she had a boyfriend who came looking for Justin after finding out. There was bluster and demands for blood, to which Justin simply shrugged and said, "I'm not the one who cheated on you..."

The boyfriend, silenced by the retort, could only leave in embarrassment. Justin was one hundred percent correct. Whatever quarrel the boyfriend had, it was with his girl. She wasn't magically seduced, left senseless and unable to resist. She just made a bad call. Going after the person she made the bad call with was a misdirection of anger, and Justin rightly called it out.

Having seen the recent Facebook comment that "I don't mess with girls who are taken", I got to thinking about this issue again. Cheating is not what you think it is. Cheating is what your significant other thinks it is.

Everyone has a different definition of cheating. They also have a line they don't cross, and a line they expect others not to cross. Generally those are one in the same. But since you are not the one ultimately hurt by your cheating, it falls to the definition owned by the person who is hurt. Your boyfriend, girlfriend, spouse...

That also brings into question the concept of fidelity and its foundation. The Facebook comment I mentioned incorporates the word "taken". I find that significant because it implies ownership. Perhaps not in the legal sense, but we all know what it means. Someone, somewhere, is expecting exclusivity with the person that the Facebook poster mentioned above wont mess with.

Let's get one thing clear right now. If a person is in a relationship, an implicitly or explicitly exclusive relationship, and are still willing to cheat, then they aren't "taken". The person on the other end of that relationship may not know this. It could even be a soul-crushing surprise. In any case, at least one person in the relationship has the wrong idea, possibly even involving deceit.

Where does that leave someone like Justin? Firstly, he had no duty to the boyfriend. He's owed nothing. He gets nothing. Justin only had one question to answer, and that was "do I want to do the sex with this girl?" Clearly he did. He has no vested interest in the other questions that may exist. Secondly, the girl he slept with bears the responsibility of acting outside of the understanding her boyfriend had about their relationship. Thirdly, the boyfriend went after the obvious, however incorrect, person to exact his pound of flesh.

It's a learned behavior to go after the person your guy or girl fooled around with. Why exactly that is, I don't know. We've come to the mistaken impression that consensual sex is the fault of the third party. Except in extreme and criminal acts, that's just not the case. People fuck up all the time. They act selfishly, either by jumping in the sack or not being honest that they are prepared to jump in the sack. In either case, the fault is with the person who keeps someone else in the dark.

Justin didn't lie to anyone. He didn't coerce, manipulate, or bribe this girl into sex. To be mad at him is kinda like being mad at the person in front of you in line for buying the last Big Mac. So if you fuck around on your boo (and about half of you will), remember that there is no responsibility that you can push off onto anyone else. It's your decision; your decision to test their definition.

If you think it's anything other than that, you're mistaken.

Chronic[les]: Gateway-Phobia

Author Texas Bix Bender has published a number of books filled with cowboy wisdom. He's said things like, "don't squat with your spurs on", or "there's more ways to skin a can than sticking its head in a boot jack and jerking its tail." One of my favorite little bits of brilliance has stuck with me since I first picked up one of his books over twenty years ago. "Don't be mad a someone who knows more than you. It ain't their fault."

Not to put too fine a point on it, the Trump administration has been mad at a lot of people lately...

Rather recently, Sean Spicer spoke on the issue of marijuana and enforcement of Federal laws in a somewhat sidelong manner. "I think that when you see something like the opioid addiction crisis blossoming in so many states around this country, the last thing we should be doing is encouraging people," Spicer said. "There is still a federal law that we need to abide by."

He's right on the count of the opioid crisis. He's also right about there being Federal laws in place, though he stops short of saying that there will be more Federal resources used to enforce them in states that have legalized it for recreational use. Why he hits the brakes before making a sweeping statement like that, I don't know. Hasn't stopped anyone else in Washington lately.

Dr. Andrew Kolodny, co-director of Opioid Policy Research at Brandeis University's Heller School for Social Policy and Management, has said "We know why there's an opioid addiction epidemic. ... I don't think there is really debate. It's because we have overexposed the population to prescription opioids. The driver behind that increase in opioid addiction has been an overprescribing of pain medicine, overexposing the population to a highly addictive drug."

The assertion that marijuana is a gateway drug is a relic from the days of D.A.R.E. We were told that we'd be surrounded by people pushing drugs at us. The practical manifestation of that claim resides in those who ended up in a doctor's office with some variety of persistent pain. A flowery way of saying that your local smack pusher was most likely your doctor.

In fact, no causative relationship can be found between marijuana use and subsequent opiate abuse. The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published a study that correlates state passage of medical marijana laws with a 24.8% reduction in opioid related overdose deaths between 1999 and 2010. Considering an average of 33,000 opioid overdose deaths in the United States each year, that is not an insignificant number. It's roughly the number of firearm related deaths, and suggesting a therapy that would reduce that number by 24.8% would certainly garner legislative support. That is a quantum leap in mortality prevention, no matter what your stance is.

The JAMA study also points out that 60% of all opioid overdoses, whether intentional (suicide) or not, occur among patients legitimately prescribed opioid pain management therapies. It is a naked fact that overdoses among purely illicit drug users are in the minority. To Dr. Kolodny's point above, this is a crisis resulting from unchecked medical professionals.

Biological causality is really a better indicator of potential opioid abuse. People who have demonstrated use and abuse of things like alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana are likelier to become addicted to opiates. However, no causal link to marijuana can be established.

In previous articles, I have pointed out the complete vacuum of empirical evidence that ties marijuana to heroin. It is mildly addictive, at best, and functionally impossible to overdose. Some mental impairments have been associated with use in people who used at a young age. However, significant pathologies of any other type are completely absent, save for bronchial irritation (smokers cough).

Evidence doesn't just not support the idea of weed as a gateway drug, but it debunks it with every study published. Science, as Neal DeGrasse Tyson stated in a segment of Cosmos, follows evidence "wherever it leads." Right now, it's not leading to any gateways. So maybe we should quit repeating that disproved rhetoric...

Maybe we should focus on education for a bit instead of indoctrination. We'll have fewer people to be mad at because they know more than us.

Where Credit is Due: Part 1

Forgive me, please. I must be raw for a moment. I must extend some very intense emotions to those who were on the outside looking in.

As you know, I am now divorced. While that can never be expected to be an easy transition, I am happier, healthier, and more positive. As my friends, I have shared good times with you. Whether to my detriment or credit, I have deliberately not shared this time with you. Not for a lack of trust in your support, mind you, but for an abundance of respect; from which came my resolve to not expose you to my baser inclinations.

In a divorce, there is always the temptation to strike out at your former spouse. I have found this to be repugnant, and my only safeguard is in keeping the more disgusting details to myself. I could not stoop to the level I feared if I did not first have the audience I needed. However you interpret my withdrawal and silence, know that it was to protect our friendship and my integrity.

As the divorce draws to a close, I must thank those who did not repeat the awful things said about me. I know that such things were said because they've been conveyed to me in the most hateful and vitriolic way I can imagine... repeated as gospel by people I once considered my closest friends.

To those who did repeat these awful things, and to whatever extent they were broadcast... fuck you.

My attempts to remain above board with my former spouse have been ignored, glossed over, or downright buried in a dung heap of biased contempt. To even call my behavior "above board" is something of a misnomer since I did not return the treatment I received in-kind. However, I was painted as everything from a cheater to an abuser. I can't even begin to illustrate how untrue that is. But the pure malice that came from the people who believed these things about me was astonishing and pervasive. To this day, I maintain blocks so that certain individuals cannot contact me directly. The same people I dearly loved before all of this began.

In late August of 2016, we had the opportunity to refinance our marital house. Even though divorce had become a certainty, refinancing would still have saved my ex some money on the monthly note, and I was still intent on making her life without me as easy as possible. While she had become impatient about transferring assets out of my name, she also became insistent that we attend the refinance closing separately. The reason why did not become apparent until the day of closing. The title company had requested that we do the paperwork in one sitting so as not to unnecessarily occupy their agent. I arrived at the appointed time and noticed that her vehicle wasn't there. There was one which was a model year newer, but I dismissed it until I saw the license plate...

She had traded in our marital vehicle without my authorization, or the court's, in direct violation of preliminary injunctions. Now I understood why she didn't want us to be there at the same time. I also found that she had started the signing earlier than appointed, which I interpret to mean she hoped to be gone by the time I arrived.

Let me make something abundantly clear. From the day I moved out in March of 2016 through July of that same year, I was supplying my ex with $650 a week in support. That had been my customary contribution to household funds, and before divorce had become certain, I felt it necessary to continue that. Even after it became certain, I continued this support throughout mediation. I was financially unable to have a home of my own because of the overwhelming majority of my check going to a home I could not sleep in.

To the outside world, it simply looked like I was comfortable couch surfing; a professional and irreverent house guest who simply wouldn't leave. Regardless of how upset my hosts may have become, it was never expressed to me directly. All I ever heard was the second-hand lamentations laid upon me by my ex.

Imagine how uncomfortable that would have been, magnify it by infinity and compound it in eternity. That's how uncomfortable that was. And then to find out that she had already taken it upon herself to remove my name from property that wasn't yet hers by the estimation of the court. I requested a renegotiation of the support that we had begun in court. I was at least determined not to pay for her new car while I slept on a couch and drove a borrowed vehicle. How selfish of me...

On August 28th, she angrily interrupted parenting time that I had with my child. She came to the home of my friends to harass and intimidate me into compliance. I had the foresight to take video (youtube link) of the entire exchange. During the conversation (if it can be called that), she threatened to call the police and report my child kidnapped if I didn't return him. When I refused to let her in the house, she frantically rang the doorbell until my friend answered and instructed her to leave. Even so, she forced her way inside and managed to convince my child to leave with her. At the end of our conversation, she struck me, knocking the camera from my hands and ending the recording.
Everything described above is also in violation of preliminary injunctions issued by the court.

The next day, I was served with a restraining order at work. Yes, a restraining order. In it, I was accused of sending harassing text messages, making aggressive or threatening motions toward her (even though you can clearly see in the video me retreating from her advances toward the door), and physically assaulting her at Christmas.

Shortly thereafter, she retained an attorney. I, being unable to afford one of my own (for the reasons detailed above), requested many times that the restraining order be voluntarily dropped. Every request was denied because she felt "unsafe". I presented the attorney, in good faith, the video recording and a complete transcript of text messages extracted from my phone. The response from the attorney was that they were "self-serving and possibly edited". I couldn't even get vindication from hard physical evidence. I continued to implore that the order be rescinded as my name and character were being assassinated. I continued to be denied.

After moving into my own apartment at the beginning of September 2016, I finally got to have regular time and sleepovers with my child. I was finally getting to be a parent again! After a few weeks of this arrangement, I received an email telling me that I was not providing a proper home for my child and that I would be limited to seeing him for eight hours every other weekend. In case you're wondering, no, an officer of the court or representatives from family services never came to my home to investigate. My apartment was not unfit, just under-furnished. But that was reason enough for my ex to interrupt my time with my child yet again. Being under a restraining order, I could not contact her directly about it, and her attorney would not address the issue.

Court would follow a few months later and after our preliminary hearing, I visited the Protective Orders office at the courthouse and set a date for a hearing before the commissioner. Then, and only then, did she drop the order. I had been denied the opportunity to exonerate myself in front of the court. She had even found a way to take that from me.

She lied about me, robbed me of my rights as a spouse, as a parent... and even then, I sacrificed certain rights. At court, I surrendered my claim to equity in our house, her retirement, and her business interests, all of which the law would have given to me without a fight. All I wanted in negotiations with her attorney was equal parenting time with my child. Instead, I was lawyered out of that.

She took everything she could get from me, and even after all I gave up, she took more. These are the things I kept to myself. These are the things that I endured quietly while some of you were fed stories to the contrary. For those who have the stomach, read the messages above and see the horrible names she called me. Watch the video and tell me that I threatened her in any way. Having been denied everything that was rightfully mine, I wish to claim this one last thing. A balanced view.

And there you have it. My side. Only what I can prove. If I'm the awful person she claimed I was, then maybe we shouldn't be friends after all.