Is flirting cheating?
My boyfriend and I had this conversation last night and of course it’s a good conversation to have—I feel like flirting is cheating and he doesn’t think it is exactly. We did not get into an argument or anything but it was interesting to hear his perspective. He said that cheating to him is a pretty narrowly defined term where emotional and/or physical boundaries are crossed. Flirting is kind of a grey area where it could or couldn’t be depending on the context and I guess I kind of agree but I don’t like grey areas so I just lump flirting in with a lesser degree of cheating. I gave him an example of if we were both out with our respective friend groups but coincidentally ended up at the same bar and I saw him with a girl at a bar and they were clearly flirting and there was tension, I would view that as extremely uncomfortable and a lesser degree of cheating. So my question to him was: is intent to cheat, cheating? Even if you don’t emotionally or physically cross a boundary, are you searching for validation outside your relationship? Is flirting with someone at a bar a betrayal? It’s so interesting how it could be so for one person and not so for the other.