In One Man's Fall, Bruises for All

Fail to understand the true question, and every possible answer will be wrong. It will sound, boyfriends and husbands, like you are defending Eliot Spitzer, like you are a cheater cheater pumpkin eater.

"I think he has an addiction," says Nicholas Warner, checking out the new Target in Columbia Heights with his girlfriend, Shweta Ramsahai. "I'm not saying it was right, but it's a sex addiction."

Wouldn't she forgive him, he asks, if he were addicted to drugs?

Totally different, says Ramsahai. And besides, "you still have a choice," she says. "That's what I don't understand."

There's so much we don't understand in these conversations. Women don't understand why men do this, and why their own men have no satisfactory information. Men don't understand why they are expected to know, and how the whole exchange can go so rapidly down the toilet.

Allow for some gross generalizations: All of this relationship-projecting might boil down to women's tendency to empathize, to look at Silda Wall Spitzer and know exactly how it would feel to stand on that podium, behind your philandering husband.

And men, well, men compartmentalize. Men look at Spitzer and think, "Sorry, chump." But know why he did this? Why would I know why he did this? Psychological disturbance, maybe? Changing cultural norms? If we look at it logically . . .

Bzzzzt. Wrong answers, all.

When Warner and Ramsahai are asked why they think conversations like theirs occur, Warner speculates: "I think -- and here's a gender bias -- that women tend to trust less in relationships. They see something on TV and it makes them want to check in." He turns to Ramsahai. "I don't ever really worry about you cheating on me."

Gaaaarrrgh!

Heather and Vaughan Turekian were walking their dog past the scene of the crime, the Mayflower Hotel, when they started to talk about Eliot Spitzer.

Heather marveled over his complete stupidity, the absolute incomprehensibility of a man doing such a thing to his wife. Their dog frisked happily on his leash, and Vaughan responded with what is the only correct response in situations such as this:

"I totally agree."