By Erin Davey |@erin_davey_journalism Images by Ralf Seemann and Mohamed Hassan

We will be looking at the causes of cheating, the definition, and how cheating differs in Gen X and Gen Z. We will also look at connections between cheating and the media .

Humans need connection. From the moment we are born we thrive when having a bond with a loving parent. As we grow these connections extend to our wider families, friends and communities. We grow into adulthood and seek the love and support of a romantic partner. But how do we find them, and keep them? Cheating is a terrible thing that many people are unfortunate enough to experience, but with the help of two comedians: Suzy Frost and Scott Bennet, we think that cheating can be broken down in a way that is sure to amuse you. And since our lovely comedians have had very different experiences in love their different opinions will help show some different sides to cheating. Scott is 43 and has been married for 18 years so he hasn’t had much experience of modern dating or cheating, whereas Suzy is a bit on the younger side and has been cheated on more than once. She has also recently been through a divorce so she had had some very different experiences in the dating world.

Technology. Everyone knows that it has a huge impact on our lives and has transformed the world in more ways than we can imagine, but how has the digital age changed the way people cheat? Scott is married, so he hasn’t been on the dating scene for a while, but he explains that he was ‘classically meeting someone in a nightclub’ in his time. He described it as seeming ‘ so archaic now, doesn’t it really. That seems like something cavemen used to do’. This statement supports the fact that technology and social media is where most cheating starts nowadays. Scott explained that when it comes to cheating he has ‘ not really experienced that side of things’ so ‘ what I can gather from other people really, I think cheating with the technology I suppose means that if you were to cheat on someone now you’d have got ways and means of mobile phones and there’s email addresses or there’s WhatsApp which you can hide from your partner, it took a lot more effort to probably cheat on on someone in the 80s , you’d have to go meet them in a pub or layby, it’s well more sinister then, but I think now it’s probably, it’s made it a bit easier’ but ‘ you can be as deceitful as you like,I think the guilt will, it depends on what sort of person you are, but your guilt and your conscience will probably unravel you in the end’. And to make things more complicated Scott has noticed that ‘everyone is being tracked’ nowadays so it has become very difficult to have privacy when online. This appears to have made it easier to detect cheaters in Scott’s opinion. So even though people may have more opportunities to cheat, they also have more opportunities to get caught.

Suzy thinks that if the older generations had access to Facebook or Instagram or something like that they would be behaving the same way Gen Z does online. When it comes to social media ‘the signs there are more openly visible, so there would have been signs back then but just not on phones that are now visible’. Suzy and Scott think that cheating has become much easier to do in the current generation with the use of social media. In the past people would have to resort to ‘sending polaroids to someone in the post’ which seems like a lifetime ago. Nowadays you can just hit people up on social media. Nice and simple.

As for Gen Z and their trust issues, Suzy definitely thinks that social media is a big cause. ‘ Social media 100%’was her immediate response to that question. But she also suggested that growing up in a household where infidelity was present would have had a large impact on someone’s ability to trust people in relationships. ‘If you’ve already got that at home then to see it everywhere on social media and in the media itself, like on Tele, I think that will obviously make you paranoid’. Suzy also notes that everything is accessible online, ‘ nothing is hidden’. You will always find the truth in the end. So Scott and Suzy can both agree that everything is trackable online.
Scott thinks that Gen Z’s trust issues are worse than the trust issues present in Gen X. He hypothesised that this could be because ‘the consequences of anything going wrong are way more severe’. He suggested that people may struggle to trust because of all the opportunities they have to cheat. Gen Z may also worry about people having footage of them. He thinks that cheaters get shamed a lot more nowadays than in the past, because everything can be filmed and posted online.
Why? That is a key question when it comes to a topic like cheating. Scott says that there ‘is something lacking’, either in the relationship or in the cheater. That is the main reason why people do it. Some simply ‘ can’t be honest with their partners’. After being with someone for 20 to 30 years they may get bored of the relationship. ‘ It’s a man-made construct is long term monogamy’ , so although it is the social norm in society Scott believes that it is not natural and that is one of the reasons why people feel the need to cheat. He also suggested that people may cheat because they ‘want to get out of the marriage or the relationship’, but they also don’t want to hurt the person they are with. ‘even though when it comes out they will hurt that person’.
Suzy thinks that bad behaviour in relationships is heavily influenced by younger generations seeing people cheating and thinking ‘ oh, that’s just how it is’, though ‘ you have to be a bit of an arsehole to start off with, to think that’s good behaviour, it’s nature versus nurture’.

In between all this drama, we would like to reveal the connections found between music and cheating. Out of people who listen to pop, metal or jazz who do you think cheats the most? Scott’s first guess was jazz, but then he changed it to pop. Suzy guessed pop as well. In particular Taylor Swift fans. Sorry Swifties! Both of our comedians were surprised to hear that the correct answer was actually jazz! As Suzy observed ‘ trumpets make people horny apparently’.
On a more serious note we asked Scott for a definition of cheating. He said that cheating is obviously the physical aspect of it, but there is more to it than that. It is when you have ‘disconnected from that person’. Scott explained that he and his wife ‘argue all the time’ , but that there is still a ‘ tethering spine in the relationship’. Something will hold the relationship together even if there are arguments and bad days. A relationship is over when you’ve resigned yourself to the fact that there is nothing left and neither of you can find the strength to reconnect or feel like it’s worth it.
Suzy’s definition of cheating also consists of the physical aspect, but Suzy noted that it could be ‘a long conversation with someone that’s a bit suggestive’. That is cheating in Suzy’s eyes because ‘you could have that with me, why are you looking elsewhere’. It means that a partner is looking elsewhere for attention, touch, whatever it happens to be.

Cheating breaks hearts. Just break up instead!