I couldn’t bear making them feel that way, any more than I could tolerate the sting of judgment, the feeling of having done something bad, of being bad. And while I felt the urge to play around on the side and couldn’t sustain interest in one man for as long as I felt I should, I didn’t want to be subjected to non-exclusivity myself. Hypocritically, I wanted to have affairs, but I didn’t want my partner to. As one vivaciously beautiful and intelligent woman in her late thirties told me, “I don’t want to be with a player, even though I want to be one.” Of course she added, “What the hell is
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