Outrage About Infidelity Is So...huff...American

...and this fellow thinks we ought to be a little more European about it:

It seems no other population suffers the same magnificent anguish that we do. The Russians regard affairs as benign vices, like cigars and scotch. The Japanese have institutionalized extramarital sex through clubs and salaryman lifestyles. The French, who don't cheat as much as we thought they did, prize discretion above the occasional lie. In sub–Saharan Africa, even the threat of death by HIV hasn't created a strong taboo on cheating. And God, well, he's tried. Like a father gently lecturing his adolescent, using the monogamy-is-cool approach, and then resorting to "You're grounded for life if you disobey me." But to no avail: Even God-fearing and devout Muslims, Christians, and Jews are still cheating and having affairs, still double-parking on their spouses.

Well, yeah:

During my first trip to Paris, I found myself intimidated by everyone's sense of composure. I was amazed at how people—who didn't otherwise seem crazy—talked to themselves. Someone explained the European psyche; they have a developed capacity to "converse" with themselves. Now, I wonder if that confidence, that ability to reckon with one's own soul, is something Americans lack. We compulsively look to media, to society, to our partners for our own self-esteem, without ever stopping to wonder how our self-worth ended up in someone else's hands.

We in the New World are rookies of sorts. Human beings elsewhere seem more aware and less terrified of the fact that a person is born alone and dies alone—as though people become accustomed to that notion after many hundreds of years of civilization. We Americans are like a senior class about to graduate into the real world, socially green enough to think we'll all be friends forever and that nothing will change.

I'm glad I live in a country that still takes marital fidelity seriously, and doesn't dismiss it with a knowing shrug. We have high standards, and our society is healthier because of it. I'm glad we're not a nation full of sophisticated Lotharios like this fellow: