Is Flirting Cheating? – What Constitutes as Flirting?
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Now picture this: you’re at a party with your besties (minus your significant other). While your best friends are busy dancing, you’re quietly sipping your wine at your table. A handsome man comes and introduces himself and starts having a conversation with you. Even you engage in the conversation only to kill your time. You aren’t attracted to him, nor are you planning on exchanging numbers. You both discuss politics, careers, etc. and say goodbye to each other with a handshake. In the cab, while returning to your friend’s place, your besties start asking, “What was all that about?”, “Are you going to tell your boyfriend about it?” These questions thrown at you sound like firecrackers to you.
You begin to wonder, “Did I do anything wrong? It wasn’t flirting, right? I didn’t cheat!” You surely didn’t consider such reactions from your friends to pop out! In the back of your head, you begin to think that even if it was flirting, it was harmless. It made you confident and boosted your self-esteem and you began to think that, “Not bad, I can still strike a conversation with a stranger.” And now, you seek for just one simple answer, “Is flirting cheating?”
So, Is Flirting Considered To Be Cheating?
The answer to this question is not that simple. First thing, everybody around us has a different meaning to what cheating is. And well, when it comes to flirting, it could vary from a simple smile to doing a booty dance with someone in the club. We spoke to many relationship experts about this confusion. And what we think now is that cheating can be anything, it’s a behavior or an activity that you’re participating in and you don’t want to tell your SO about it. While many tie the act of cheating to something physical, it necessarily isn’t always the case. One can even emotionally cheat their partner.
On the other hand, to flirt is to intentionally attract someone’s attention to have some interaction. Therefore, a desire to interact with a person doesn’t mean that you want to have a romantic or a physical involvement with that particular person. And in such cases, flirting isn’t harmful and cannot necessarily be characterized as cheating. But let us tell you that, flirting which might start on an innocent note could turn into a slippery rope too. And the answer to the above question depends on what’s the prospective thought of an individual regarding it. For many out there, flirting is out-and-out considered wrong! Let’s take a look at scenarios where you could be flirting and might also be cheating without your knowledge.
Social Media
While social media is considered as a boon for many, it’s also considered as a curse by many more, especially by the committed ones! Haven’t you heard the phrase, “it all goes down in the DMs?” It’s okay if you’re following someone you don’t really know on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter. You’re probably liking and commenting on their posts and tweets because you feel some sort of a connection to whatever content they’re putting up. And if you reach out to them and appreciate them through a DM, that’s completely fine. For example, if you love a lifestyle blogger’s content in terms of his dressing styles or the way he poses for his pictures and you let him know about it. That could be flirting but in a good way.
But if you find yourself messaging s person on social media in a manner that you hide or delete all of those messages from your significant other, then, this could be nothing but cheating.
Emotional Cheating
They say that emotional cheating is quite mentally taxing when compared to physical cheating. This is because, in the case of emotional cheating, you’re mentally disturbing your partner. For example, you throw a Diwali party at your house, and with a couple of drinks down you start sharing your heart with a friend of yours. This might be bearable by your partner. But in your naive sense of humor, you end up talking about how your partner is boring on the bed or you simply say that your partner needs to take some dressing up lessons — such revelations in the middle of a party and to everybody can deeply hurt your partner.
At Work
We all have this one or two people at work that make our otherwise grim Mondays a little brighter, isn’t it? You could also be that person! But at times, you may go way beyond your boundary to make your colleague comfortable. In such cases, you need to think that if your partner would feel comfortable if he/she were sitting around you seeing this.
In the end, what we think is that, if it bothers your partner, then you probably shouldn’t be doing it. It’s very important to understand that it takes two people’s efforts for a relationship to work. Flirting might seem like a small thing. It is the reality in most cases, but make sure you keep your partner’s comfort as your topmost priority. So, what do you think? Is flirting okay or not? Let us know in the comments section below.
