Burn Your Crocs

There is a theory about serial cheaters that I have never completely understood.

When a man repeatedly cheats on his wife or girlfriend, eventually someone says:

Maybe he secretly likes men.

And I’ve always wondered: How did we get there?

Sexuality is far too complex to diagnose someone’s orientation based on the fact that they are unfaithful.

A man can be straight. He can be gay. He can be bisexual. He can experience his sexuality with more fluidity than any of those labels adequately describe.

But cheating doesn’t tell us which one he is.

Cheating tells us that he cheats.

And I think we sometimes become so interested in uncovering a secret sexuality that we overlook another possibility entirely:

What if some serial cheaters aren’t operating from sexual confusion at all? What if they’re operating from scarcity?

The Man Who Can Never Have Enough Proof

Scarcity doesn’t always look like having nothing.

Scarcity can be about whether what you have ever feels like enough.

Imagine a man who, at some point in his life, didn’t feel particularly desirable. Maybe he was overlooked. Maybe he struggled with insecurity. Maybe none of those things objectively happened, but internally, he developed the belief that being desired meant something important about his worth.

Then he gets the girl.

Suddenly, he has evidence.

She wants me.

I must be desirable.

But eventually, being desired by her becomes normal.

So another question appears:

Could I get her too?

He pursues another woman.

She reciprocates.

And there it is again:

I still got it.

For a moment, he gets the high.

This is where psychologist B. F. Skinner’s work on operant conditioning and reinforcement gives us an interesting framework.

Skinner studied how consequences shape behavior. In very simplified terms, when a behavior produces a rewarding consequence, we become more likely to repeat that behavior.

Apply that concept to cheating and suddenly the question changes.

Instead of asking: Why does he want so many women?

We might ask: What reward does pursuing another woman provide him?

Because perhaps the woman isn’t actually the reward.

Perhaps being wanted is.

The High of “Can I Get Her?”

Think about everything that happens before an affair.

The flirting.

The uncertainty.

The anticipation.

The secrecy.

The wondering whether she’s interested.

The moment she finally reciprocates.

That entire process can create psychological reinforcement.

And importantly, the outcome isn’t guaranteed.

Not every woman will be interested.

Not every message will receive a response.

Not every pursuit will be successful.

Skinner’s research into reinforcement helps us understand why unpredictability can make certain behaviors remarkably persistent. When rewards aren’t guaranteed every single time, the uncertainty surrounding the reward can become part of what keeps the behavior going.

Will she want me?

Can I get her?

Do I still have it?

Then she says yes.

Reward.

Validation.

Temporary satisfaction.

And eventually, another opportunity presents itself.

The cycle begins again.

Scarcity Can Wear the Costume of Abundance

This is what fascinates me.

From the outside, the serial cheater appears to be operating from abundance.

He has a wife.

Women find him attractive.

He has options.

He has accumulated plenty of evidence that he is sexually desirable.

Yet internally, he may still be operating from:

I need more proof.

That’s scarcity.

Because abundance says: I already know who I am.

Scarcity keeps asking: But can somebody else confirm it?

And if your sense of desirability requires constant external confirmation, there may never be enough women to permanently satisfy it.

One woman proves it today.

Another woman proves it tomorrow.

Eventually yesterday’s validation expires, and you need another person to make you feel what you cannot consistently generate internally.

So perhaps some serial cheaters aren’t addicted to sex.

Perhaps they’re addicted to confirmation.

And This Is Where Sexuality Gets Oversimplified

None of this means sexuality can never play a role in someone’s infidelity.

Of course it can.

A closeted gay man may marry a woman.

A bisexual man may marry a woman.

A heterosexual man may marry a woman.

Any of those men could cheat.

Any of those men could also remain completely faithful.

Because sexual orientation and relationship behavior are not the same thing.

Who someone is attracted to is one question.

How someone identifies that attraction is another.

How someone behaves toward the person they committed themselves to is yet another.

We shouldn’t collapse all three into one.

Sexuality exists across an enormous spectrum, and human beings don’t always fit neatly into the categories we create for them. A man experiencing attraction toward another man doesn’t automatically erase whatever attraction he experiences toward women. Bisexuality exists. Sexual fluidity exists. Human sexuality can be complicated.

Likewise, a man repeatedly cheating on women doesn’t somehow provide evidence that his “real” desire must secretly be for men.

Sometimes the more relevant question isn’t: Who does he really want?

It is: Why does he need so many people to want him?

Maybe He Isn’t Collecting Women

Maybe he’s collecting evidence.

Evidence that he’s attractive.

Evidence that he’s powerful.

Evidence that he still has options.

Evidence that he can walk into a room and get someone else’s attention.

Evidence that despite whatever insecurity exists underneath everything, he is still desirable.

And if that’s the psychological reward, having a beautiful wife won’t necessarily stop the behavior.

Neither will having two women.

Or five.

Or twenty.

Because you cannot accumulate enough external evidence to permanently resolve an internal belief that keeps telling you there isn’t enough.

That’s the contradiction I find most interesting about serial cheating:

The serial cheater may look like a man surrounded by abundance while behaving like a man who can never accumulate enough proof that he is wanted.

And maybe that’s why the conversation shouldn’t always begin with:

Is he secretly gay?

Maybe sometimes the better question is:

What does being desired give him that he hasn’t learned to give himself?