Is It Actually Cheating If You Feel Guilty After?

There is a particular silence that falls over a person at 1:14 a.m. in the back of a rideshare, phone face down, hair smelling faintly of somebody else's cologne. It is not regret, exactly. Regret is a strong word, and we try not to use strong words before brunch. It is something softer and more negotiable. It is guilt, and guilt, as any lawyer will tell you, is merely a starting position.

Which brings us to the question that has kept philosophers, theologians and your friend Danielle awake for centuries: if you feel genuinely bad about it afterwards, does it still count?

The Editorial Department has examined the evidence. We have consulted no experts. We have, however, consulted ourselves, extensively, and we are prepared to share our findings.

A brief history of feeling terrible

Guilt is one of humanity's oldest technologies, older than the wheel and considerably more portable. Early societies discovered that if you made people feel bad enough about something, they would stop doing it, or at least start doing it more quietly. This was called civilisation.

For most of recorded history, guilt worked as a kind of moral receipt. You did the thing, you felt awful, and the awful feeling was proof that you were, deep down, a decent person who had simply been ambushed by circumstance, tequila or a very good jawline. Medieval Europe went one step further and made guilt purchasable. You could feel terrible, pay a modest fee and leave with a clean slate and a pamphlet. The Church called these indulgences. We call them the original subscription model.

The modern sinner has no such convenience. There is no counter to visit and nobody to issue the receipt. You are left to process the guilt yourself, usually in the shower, usually while composing a text that begins, "So, funny story."

The case for "it doesn't count"

Let us begin with the argument most popular among the recently confessed. If cheating is fundamentally a betrayal of the heart, and your heart was clearly not in it, because look how bad you feel, then surely what occurred was less a betrayal and more a clerical error. Your body went one way. Your soul stayed loyally at home, watching the same show you are both watching, refusing to skip ahead.

Proponents of this view point to intent. You did not intend to cheat. You intended to have one drink, and then you intended to have one more drink, and then you intended to leave, and then a series of smaller intentions formed a sort of committee and outvoted you. Can a person really be held responsible for the decisions of a committee?

There is also the matter of suffering. You have suffered. You have not slept properly in four days. You have been unusually helpful around the house. You bought flowers for no reason, which, in retrospect, was the least subtle thing you could possibly have done. If the purpose of punishment is to make the guilty party feel bad, then congratulations: justice has been served, internally, and nobody else needs to be bothered with the paperwork.

The case for "yes, obviously, you absolute goblin"

We are legally required to present the other side, and so we shall, briefly and without enthusiasm.

The opposing school holds that cheating is defined by the act, not by the feelings that follow it. Under this view, guilt is not a refund. It is not even store credit. It is simply the correct emotional response to having done something you knew you should not do, arriving fashionably late and expecting to be thanked for coming.

Critics further note that guilt is suspiciously convenient. It costs nothing, it is entirely self-reported and it tends to peak at exactly the moment you are discovered. One researcher, who asked not to be named because she does not exist, described guilt as "the emotional equivalent of signalling after you've already changed lanes."

Guilt is not a refund. It is not even store credit.

The Editorial Department, against its own interests

It is a compelling argument. It is also a deeply inconvenient one, and we did not get where we are today by accepting inconvenient arguments. We got here by never taking responsibility for anything.

The middle ground nobody asked for

Perhaps the truth lies somewhere in between, which is where truth usually lies when it is trying to avoid being found.

Consider a sliding scale. A person who cheats and feels nothing is, by broad consensus, a villain. A person who cheats and feels mildly bad is a protagonist in a prestige drama, which is a step up. A person who cheats and feels so devastated that they write a 2,000-word essay about it is, technically, a columnist. You see where this is going. Guilt does not undo the act. It merely upgrades the genre, and as our research has shown, a better genre makes a better story.

There is also the question of who the guilt is for. If you feel terrible because you hurt someone you love, that is conscience, and conscience is admirable, if poorly timed. If you feel terrible because you might get caught, that is not guilt. That is project management.

Ask yourself honestly which one you are feeling. Then, if the answer is unflattering, ask again, more slowly, until it improves.

So, does it count?

After careful deliberation, the Editorial Department has reached a verdict, and the verdict is: yes. Obviously. Of course it counts. Feeling bad about something has never once, in the history of the species, caused that thing to un-happen. If it did, the entire hospitality industry would collapse.

But here is the part nobody tells you. The guilt is not useless. It is information. It tells you what you value, what you are willing to risk and, most importantly, how good you are at lying to yourself at 1:14 a.m. in the back of a rideshare. Some people use that information to become better partners. Others use it to become better at not getting caught. We will leave the choice to you. We always do. It is our entire business model.

Whatever you decide, decide it with your eyes open. Make your choices on purpose, apologise when you mean it and, for heaven's sake, stop buying flowers for no reason. Everybody knows what that means, in the same way everybody knows what a face-down phone means.