Tom Stoppard said one thing that's been bugging me all day. The play he was discussing "Night and Day", which was written in 1978, has a scene where a woman feels guilty for committing adultery in a hotel room. Stoppard said that in 1978 adultery was shocking, but that in 2002 adultery is more or less acceptable. When has adultery ever been acceptable? I was so shocked he said this. I supposed he's right when he says, we're not shocked, but he was sort of saying that a one night adulterous affaire in a hotel was okay in 2002.

Maybe I'm old fashioned but I would be freaked out if my husband told me he had a one night stand in hotel. I was freaked when boyfriends fooled around, and promptly broke up with them, telling them if you can't be faithful to me when we're exclusively dating and there's no pressure, you're not going to be faithful to me when we're married and we're fighting, bored or sometimes sick of each other. Plus with all the diesease going around, the guy was not on jeapordizing their health but mine as well.

I watched my mom go through this with my dad, and grew up watching her go to pieces every time this happened. My dad was severely old fashioned and european and thought it was his right to have affaires, as long as he didn't leave the marriage. I remember hearing him tell my brother that fooling around for men was perfectly acceptable, but not for women. I saw first hand how infidelity destroys people. My parents never divorced but spent the rest of their lives, until my dad died, torturing each other over my father's infidelity. The things my mother went through were gross, sordid and dirty. I'm not sure how my mom survived my father's history of affaires, but my mom is strong and I know I inherited my strength from her.

Maybe adultery is acceptable in London and other places, but never in my world. The woman in his play has line which goes something like "hotel rooms have another morality". Stoppard said that there's an interrupted clap that happens in the audience. Some people clap, but then then stop themselves since they know to clap is wrong. It makes me wonder if those people clapping have had one night stands in hotel and are in committed relationships?