By Michael Laws
What an odd sort of media week: that curious hybrid of the trivial and the terrible that always bedevils January.
It's the season, of course – we are over Christmas but not quite into the rhythm of the new year. Outside it's summer and the weather has settled. Heat hums from the hills.
So it is then that the media serve us a news diet of car crashes, dog attacks, the Ratana irrelevance and sensationalism. It's the only month when it's respectable to go tabloid.
And there's been an awful lot to go tabloid about. The arrest of the German BMI buster Kim Dotcom – good enough to be a New Zealand citizen but not good enough to own a house. There's been the obligatory Maori child murdered, and the wash-up that always happens just after a general election.
Cue the release of the John Key-John Banks tape on the internet. A dreadful embarrassment not so much for the principals but those media who hyped the conversation as "a game changer". The Herald on Sunday and TV3 News do need to ask themselves a serious question in its wake: why did we say that?
Having now listened to the entire 10 minutes – very probably illegally – I can attest that it was the kind of convo that any two politicians will have in any public place. Bland, boring and banal. As revelatory as Winston Peters' shopping list. No, less.
But it has also been a month for the dreaded list and the fictional survey. That time of year when journalists take seriously some ill-researched PR stunt aimed at popularising something unworthy of popularity. Hence the slavish coverage given this week to AshleyMadison.com and its cheating membership.
Cheating? Sorry, unfaithful. Or a free-thinking fun-lover – depending on whether you're the exploratory or the explored.
According to the dating website they have more than 50,000 adult New Zealanders enrolled and they can attest that those persons most likely to stray from partners are from Christchurch, are Christian, vote National and have a tattoo.
The tattoo bit, I get. Women with tattoos generally have an interesting world view – the greater the number and the more ostentatious the display, the wider that view. The tattoo on the small of the back is a dead giveaway.
And I get the voting National part. All international studies – and these are ones funded by social scientists and not websites – suggest the wealthier the individual, the more likely they are to stray from a settled partnership. They travel more, mingle more and thus encounter. In all senses of the word.
The Christchurch thing seems odd. But all those disturbed nights – what are you going to do when you can't get back to sleep?
Although the Christian marker seems a distinct irony: perhaps it's simply because we are attuned to love more. And more. After all, I'm instructed at every Anglican church service that I'm supposed to embrace complete strangers at the pre-arranged interval.
But none of these so-called "findings" seem particularly newsworthy. Rather it was the statement of the AshleyMadison principal, Noel Biderman, that "infidelity is part of human nature". And, if we are honest, it probably is.
In fact, we New Zealanders have a complete double standard. Our ex-partner cheated but we fell in love. The ex was an unfaithful duplicitous bastard/bitch but we just couldn't help ourselves. And let's be honest: many current and successful relationships started because one or both partners actually began their new sensual coupling when still attached.
And as the cheatee, rather than the cheater, we also send mixed signals. Our trust has been shattered, we proclaim. How could they do that to us? Are we the only ones with any integrity? But we've been ever so sneaky and underhand in gathering the evidence of such.
Certainly we baby boomers popularised infidelity and if we are no longer satisfied – or just plain bored – we don't take up a hobby, we take to the internet.
As a consequence, our kids have caught on quick. If anything they are more direct: nothing lasts forever, they say. Marriage is not now seen as an inexorable path to the rest home. It's a short-term contract with renewal clauses and "force majeure" outs. An enticing playmate somehow qualifies.
Although not for everyone. There are those couples actually content with each other. They are each other's best friends and still look at each other as if they have won life's jackpot. And they have discovered the true secret of a lasting relationship: they think they are with someone who is actually better than them.
Sunday Star Times, 29th January 2012