5 Tips for Having an Affair with Your Biographer

Learn from the mistakes of General “Mac Daddy” Petraeus.

Last week’s highly contentious presidential election was quickly eclipsed by the news that CIA director General David Petraeus would resign, after it was discovered that he had engaged in an extra-marital affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell. Yes, that’s right: the guy who oversees the agency tasked with keeping secrets failed to keep his own affair under wraps. Whoops! But just in case you aspire toward General “Mac Daddy” Petraeus status, we’ve compiled a list of some fail-safe tips for conducting an affair with your very own biographer.

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(1) Be kind of a dork. Dorks tend to be successful, and only successful people have biographies written about them while they are still alive (let alone young enough to bother with an affair). And you can’t very well carry on with your biographer if the most remarkable thing you’ve ever done is flip burgers. In other words, be somebody.

(2) Choose an attractive lady to write about you. No one wants to have an affair with this person or this person.

(3) Avoid doing anything that might attract the attention of the FBI. It seems like this one would be obvious, but apparently not.

(4) Once the affair has commenced, discourage your biographer from selecting chapter names that contain even the slightest hint of sexual innuendo, including but not limited to “Anaconda,” “Draw Down,” and “Still All In.” But especially “Anaconda.” In fact, just stay away from snake references entirely.

(5) We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Never let the other woman become jealous of the other other woman. This will inevitably lead Other Woman #1 to do weird things with email after downing a bottle of Chardonnay, and those weird things will inevitably result in Woman # 2 forwarding those emails to her friend at the FBI.



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