Chatting, cheating and paranoia by Arnild Van de Velde

As the majority of readers – at least as I imagine it – I was raised to face monogamy as the most acceptable type of relationship between lovers. Morover, I was also taught to praise values such as respect for individuality, as people´s sacred, untouchable rights. These days though, fidling around with newspapers and magazines, I was shocked finding out that jealousy (as a side effect of monogamy) is getting people to investigate the habits of their beloved ones on the Internet. Aiming to fight cyber cheating, the current and fashionable form of infidelity which is turning love life into a nightmare, ladies and gentlemen won´t hesitate in breaking rules of privacy, in order to make sure that "if trusting the partner is good, controlling him is better". Fearing the threat behind the monitor, possessive personalities are demanding access to their partner´s Internet connections, including their passwords, to check out what he or she does when browsing the web. Furthermore, some even hire a virtual detective to bring their mistrusting to an end – or to confirm it.

Cheating on the Internet does not necessarily involve sex. It thrills exactly for its virtuality: on the web, anyone can be what he or she wants to be, there are no compromises, no preoccupations , no intimidations, no hesitations. In the virtual world, love is like a dream within a dream. Behind the screen, desire overcomes all sorts of taboos, in a way that "real time dating" would rarely do. Using a computer, men and women easily undress, to use a metaphor. E-loving, as I will call it from here onwards, offers the perfect protection of identities, and this is indeed what encourage individuals to loose their personal sense of moral and religion, and then give place from harmless to bizarre fantasies, without feeling guilty. Cyber cheating provides a comfort zone for those who believe that fooling the partner without having sex, is not really what it seems. So far, hiring a spy to investigate the privacy of husband or wife, girl or boyfriend, it´s not too bad. In fact a defender of freedom, I these days come to re-think the role of monogamy on the base of several conflicts of our times. I might sound weird, but not daft.

When George Orwell wrote his "1984", conceiving Big Brother as a unique control-freak, he was just too far away from what the popularization of the web would bring to people´s lives. Nowadays, everytime you start touching your keyboard, someone, somewhere starts feeling uncomfortable. In fact, the internet seems to have revealed the grotesque in each one of us: some feel they are God, others they are worth a conspiracy. I myself know a bunch of anonymous wannabes whose days and hours are spent with strange thoughts about how many millions of people would be interested in destroying their lives by stalking them on the internet, or just by having an e-affair with their love what sometimes can be true, but this is not for me to say. Tormented but unnable to just give up - in my opinion - the best invention of men after the wheel, they prefer not to love or leave it; the real thing is to scan those who use it, no matter what will bring.

A virtual detective is either a hacker whose work consists on tracking back activities of individuals on the Internet, or programs already available on the web, such as Spector Pro 5.0, eBlaster, Keylogger and Screen Logger, easily installed in any computer via e-mail. The ability of these programs to capture every little thing done in the machines is astonishing. If the computer-to-be-attacked is corporate-owned, for example, the strategy to hack it is rather sophisticated: an investigation about the person´s habits helps to create a trap, generally an e-mail with false information on issues of interest of the victim. By opening the message, the spy program is immediately installed and starts sending all information to whom it may concern. The market for these products is increasing proportionally to the cases of divorce caused by cyber-cheating. Could spicy e-chats really harm a solid relationship? Some 80% believe so, while 60% of those who meet in an extramarital relationship, via the web, end up in bed. The question that remains open is whether the Internet powers infidelity, or if infidelity is taking advantage of the Internet.

Asked to comment on the tendency, psychologists of universities around the globe are suggesting that couples should introduce the matter intothe relationship priority list, considering it as important as the decision of having children or not. The use of the web to express sexual tension - in many cases a cyber-affair involves old friends who never had the courage to show their feelings to one another - is an effective tool to break an old pattern of behaviour: inhibition. In a number of cases, this can be healing. But, if like me, you´re not bothered by the collateral effects of the Internet - gossips, conspiracy theories and even spells - at least remain attentive next time you open your e-mails. Somebody could be watching you.