SINGAPORE – There are a couple of firsts one could call a rite of passage marking the arrival of adulthood: your first time in a club; getting into your first workplace spat; the first time you realise that, maybe, almost everybody cheats.

Call me naive, but as a young millennial stepping into her 30s, that last one felt the most significant in bidding my youthful innocence adieu.

When I was younger, cheaters were always in the wrong and deserved no forgiveness. When a friend asked if I would take her side if she ever cheated on her partner, I bit my tongue and changed the topic.

I was perennially single, so had no skin in the game, but only knew people who were victims of infidelity. I watched how friends who had been cheated on struggled with trust issues afterwards. I saw some of the toughest people break overnight.

One night, I walked in on my sister crying in her bed, months after she had dumped her boyfriend – who had the gall to cheat during national service – a Spotify playlist of mournful ballads playing softly in the dark.

“Sorry. Sometimes, it still hurts,” she said, sniffling. I vowed then to never forgive any cheater, romantic or platonic.

But lately, things have become less black and white. As I got older, the idea that cheating was prevalent grew more apparent. Even in somewhat conservative Singapore, everywhere I turned, there were cautionary tales.

One friend recounted stories of married friends and audacious transgressions; of forfeited BTOs. “Everybody cheats,” she said with a shrug, so impassively that I almost felt sorry for her. “Face it, we’ll probably get cheated on too.”

Forget the loneliness epidemic. I fear a jaded mentality towards the sanctity of relationships has become my generation’s real ailment.

We seem to have reached a point in society where cheating has almost become normalised. Many blame the rise of dating apps for perpetuating the illusion of choice, but are they just a scapegoat for bad decisions?

Social media made the world smaller and more people seemingly within reach. Being able to preview 100 people in 10 minutes allowed people access to options beyond their usual circles, cities or even continents.

Yet, most instances of cheating that I heard of involved a close-by colleague or friend. Rarely was the third party fished off a dating app for nefarious purposes.

And these days, we have to contend with so many variables. The debate has progressed beyond the age-old “emotional or physical” conundrum. Was it a one-off occurrence or sustained period of cheating? Is a moment of folly more forgivable? Can you justify the cheating if you end up with the other person? And what if you cheated as a way out of a toxic relationship?

My once strongly etched lines around cheating blurred further when people I held dear became the transgressors.

When a close friend broke the news of her infidelity, I had a hard time contending with what that meant for our friendship. Did I still share the same values with this stranger before me?

Forgiveness and empathy sometimes feel like two sides of the same coin – born from the same emotion yet difficult to practise concurrently. I could no longer lavish hate from afar on faceless men (and women) who had done my friends wrong. Like it or not, I had to try to understand.

After some time apart, I eventually came to the conclusion that, knowing her circumstances, my friend must have been in a really difficult situation emotionally to have done something out of character.

At a recent gathering of peers in their late 20s and early 30s, a show of hands revealed that about a third of the 12 present had cheated before. What struck me in this reveal was not the number, but the matter-of-fact nature of this reveal – solemnly owning their mistakes as a part of who they are today.

While the generations before us may associate cheating with shame and self-loathing, why does mine openly claim the cheater label, shrugs and all? Why do we fully embrace who we are, morally ambiguous choices included? For better or for worse, it seems radical self-acceptance is paving how we move through the world.

More on this Topic

As social mores continue to evolve, I have had to recalibrate my moral compass. Friendship in my 30s has become a balancing act of (re)aligning my values and priorities. It is easy to speak in theory about cutting off people who “no longer serve you”; harder to put into practice when decades of meaningful friendship come into play.

The intervening years have forced me off my high horse to learn empathy and hold people to standards they set for themselves, rather than my own.

I remain clear that I will never condone cheating, nor will I normalise it when entering a relationship. No matter the context, cheating happens because at least one party lacks the emotional intelligence and courage to have an honest conversation.

But perhaps leaning into the grey areas of life also means learning to separate the act from the person.

They say you are the sum of who you surround yourself with. In my unconscious search of proof of goodness in my friends, maybe all I want is reassurance that one act will not define them – nor me.

But if they transgress again, that is a dilemma for another day.

  • Hear Me Out is a new series where young journalists (over)share on topics ranging from navigating friendships to self-loathing, and the occasional intrusive thought.

More on this Topic

Join ST’s Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.

Thanks for sharing!