Avoiding Innocent Victims: 10 Rules for Affairs

The Petraeus affair may have claimed an innocent victim in the person of Gen. John Allen, the man who was expected to be the next head of NATO. He claims he was never alone with Jill Kelley, and I'm inclined to believe him.

This highlights a serious problem ushered in by the Internet.  Because anyone can send you email, a crazy person can become infatuated with you and inundate you with gushing and suggestive emails. If that person happens to be important in your social circles, as Jill Kelley was in Gen. Allen's, you may feel obligated to respond cordially to their incessant barrage of spam. According to reports, they exchanged 20-30,000 emails, though that number is almost certainly inflated.

If you're completely innocent, even an apparently benign cyberstalker like Kelley can cause you major grief. A malicious and competent one can destroy your life by setting up dummy email accounts that look like they belong to you and filling them with all sorts of false evidence.

This problem isn't really new. In the past a delusional admirer could flood your mailbox at home and at work with love letters suggesting all manner of liaisons. But at least you could burn the evidence; in the age of the Internet nothing ever goes away--except that spreadsheet you were working on when your computer crashed.

If Allen's career has in fact been trashed, the blame can be squarely placed on Paula Broadwell's insanely jealous crusade against the flirtatious Jill Kelley, and Petraeus' foolish decision to engage in an affair with a loose cannon.

This has prompted me to draw up 10 rules for high-ranking officials looking to have an affair.

10: Don't communicate via email, Twitter, Facebook, or Dropbox (though MySpace is probably safe by now). In fact, don't use the Internet at all. 

9: Don't use your normal cell phone or landline to contact your paramour. Get a burner cell phone and don't use your credit card to buy it. 

8: Don't have suggestive conversations at work or at home. 

7: Do choose paramours of equal rank and social standing: that is, people who have as much to lose as you do if the affair becomes public. 

6: Don't wear cologne, perfume, lipstick or makeup, or anything that will leave a strange scent on your paramour, and shower after trysts (but don't go out with wet hair!). 

5: Don't do the deed in public, in your home, at your office, or in your car. 

4: Don't change your daily routine, don't go anywhere out of the ordinary, and don't be seen in public with your paramour, especially kissing or touching in any way. 

3: Don't have an affair with a jealous clingy person, or someone who would cheat on you. Which is sort of an oxymoron, isn't it?

2: Don't leave bodily fluids on blue dresses. 

And the top rule:

1: Don't have an affair with someone who's already written one book about you, and will stand to make millions selling a second book about an affair with you.

Looking over this set of rules, it reads more like a set of contact protocols for a CIA agent than a prescription for romantic liaisons. You'd think our master spy would be more adept at this sort of thing...