Confessions of a Former Boyfriend Stealer

I need to get something off my chest ... I’m not proud of it, but back in high school I stole someone’s boyfriend. I noticed him from across the cafeteria, even under the florescent lighting he caught my eye. Unfortunately, he was walking arm in arm with her. Laughing and deliriously gazing into each other’s eyes they looked happy. She, tossing her hair over her boney shoulders in a pathetic attempt at flirting … none of that mattered to me. I no more knew her than a straight man knows good shoes. I had made my decision: I was going to break them up and get what I wanted. Keeping her happy was not on my to-do list. He was.

So clad in my cheerleading suit of armor and jacked up on Mountain Dew, I had my girlfriends put the word out that he was on my radar. Twenty-four hours later the blond haired, basketball playing, object of my desire was at my locker. He had dumped her and wanted to know if I had plans for Saturday night. Luckily for him, I had already cleared my schedule in anticipation of that very moment.

We only dated for a minute. Apparently, my blond phase was a mere two weeks long. I stopped returning his calls and moved on to my next victim (er, boyfriend). I did to him what he did to her; and I really didn’t have an ounce of guilt about it.

But see, there’s this thing called Karma ...

It took a few years for the universe to conjure up a plan of retaliation, and I got hit with a big, fat dose of Buddhist philosophy. I saw her at a wedding. Her wedding. The boyfriend I stole from her in high school was not the groom, though. Oh, no. That would have been too easy. My brother—my own flesh and blood—was the one waiting for her at the altar. I am now her sister-in-law. (Makes the ceremonious passing of the turkey and mashed potatoes a little awkward at Thanksgiving dinner.)

So I looked into this whole Karma-thing. The term literally means “deed,” and is based around the concept of cause and effect—what happens in the past has an impact on the future. The Buddhists believe that unkindness results in paap, or spoiled fruits. Good deeds yield sweet fruits, or punya. And who does need more punya in their life, right? If your history is tainted with nasty deeds at the expense of someone else’s feelings, Karma might just show up at your door in the form of a sexy underwear model that cheats on you, steals your money, and calls you fat.