Cheating is a sign of cowardice. It’s a way to avoid the real problems in a relationship by digging a grave.

I find it hard to believe that people can’t keep their pants on just because they’re tempted. A lot of grief, anguish and condoms can be saved if people break up with their partners before hopping into bed.

I would rather have my boyfriend tell me he doesn’t want to be with me for whatever reason instead of hearing he cheated on me.

In my eyes, once a person cheats, there is no taking him back. If my boyfriend cheats, he is telling me he’s willing to not only throw our relationship away but also intentionally hurt me.

I don’t understand why people can’t confront their relationship problems. Whether it’s a need for more attention or satisfaction with the relationship, those problems are going to seem trivial once someone cheats.

There is the debate of what is cheating. Some people think actual intercourse is cheating and anything less is not. Obviously they have less reputable morals than others.

Anything you do with your partner, whether it’s from kissing to late-night talks, is cheating. A person cannot maintain another romantic or flirty relationship with anyone other than their partner.

Cheating is divided into two categories: an affair or a one-time deal. Both are bad but one has a degree of malice.

An affair can be defined as a relationship, emotional or sexual, for a period of time. This means the man or woman who is cheating in an affair is going back to their boyfriend or girlfriend repeatedly after being with someone else. The cheater is looking their partner in the face and lying to them every day.

Not only is this completely disgusting, it’s cruel. The cheater is bringing whatever fluids and diseases they are getting from their “thing on the side” to their partner.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released 2004 HIV statistics based on surveyed men and women. Of the 3,139 women polled, 14 percent of Caucasian women, 6 percent of Black women and 6 percent of Hispanic women knew their partner was bisexual.

In a separate survey from the same source, 65 percent of the men who had slept with men claimed to have had sex with women.

My money is banking that not all of them told their female partners about their extracurricular activities.

Granted, these numbers are extreme, but they are real. If people could just end a relationship before they stray, a lot of health issues could be avoided.

For the one-night standers, one popular excuse is alcohol, which is a complete cop-out. There is no amount of alcohol that could keep a person from realizing what they’re doing.

If alcohol does have such an effect on someone, why drink that much? If you know that you get a little slutty when you drink, push yourself away from the Tequila bottle and walk away.

A lot of people take cheating too lightly. They can blame the alcohol or say he or she was young and dumb, but the truth is they were too scared to be adults about their relationships.

If you’re adult enough to be in a relationship and cheat, then you’re adult enough to say the dreaded “We need to talk.”

Noelle Pennyman is a junior public relations major and a columnist for the Daily Kent Stater. Contact her at [email protected].