Thirty-one percent of American marriages will end in divorce. At some point, 47 percent of American men will cheat on their spouses, and 25 percent will with multiple women.
Alright, I made those statistics up. But that’s beside the point. The point is, people suck. Millions of guys, including our revered Tiger, can’t keep it in their pants. Being the characteristically unscrupulous Americans that we are, finding out that another man had extramarital affairs with one or 14 women really shouldn’t be all that much of a surprise.
Now, I’m not saying that what our little kitty did is acceptable. On the contrary, I think that Tiger’s actions are completely despicable and that he should be absolutely ashamed of himself. All I’m saying is that it’s really not that big of a deal for us. Every day tons of adulterous, two-timing dudes get it on with someone other than their spouse, and the fact that this one can knock a little white ball 300 yards doesn’t make it any different. So this goes to you, the National Enquirer-reading teeny-bopper: get a life.
On Nov. 27, Tiger Woods smashed his Escalade into a tree at 2:30 in the morning. In the following days over a dozen women came out with claims that they had or were currently having extramarital affairs with him. Naturally, the media has been publishing the story to death over the past month and a half, and America has formed a strange bond through our fascination with Tiger Woods’ sex life. This is clear.
As a nation, we have shown time and again how much we love the sick pleasure we get from our idols’ mistakes. Perhaps it’s because they let us forget our own shortcomings by maximizing those of our anointed demigods. Maybe it’s just that making our heroes seem more human lets us normal people feel more like heroes. In any case, Tiger is a golfer, not a chastity teacher, and the fact that he is held to a greater standard of morality by society is utterly ridiculous.
Last time I checked, Tiger had started no global foundation devoted to promoting marital faith, and he thus has no more of an obligation to our society’s monogamous standards than anyone else in America. The fact that we get such an inexplicable joy out of exploiting the faults of the rich and famous is unfair to those who have faulted.
In the end, things won’t change. Those we admire will continue to misstep, and we as a society will continue to swarm, ravaging their misfortunes for all they’re worth and leaving their beaten corpses out on the street. Everyone will laugh, too caught up in the problems of others to see how twisted they themselves are. As K from “Men in Black” so eloquently put it, “A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals.”
Even though our collective mass society will continue our synergistic approach to destroying the lives of others, you can change. And all you have to do is stop caring. It’s as simple as that. So even if Tiger Woods is the snarkiest, slimiest, cheating, conniving schmuck ever to grace our good country, just realize that it doesn’t matter. Break yourself away from People magazine’s monopoly on our minds, and live your own freaking life.
