Cheating – much like being judgmental or looking fat in jeans – one of those things we can’t seem to self diagnose but see oh-so- easily in/on others. 

Physical cheating, emotional cheating, cheating when you’re “on a break” – it’s all the same stuff. You have an established loyalty that you break by engaging with another person in a more than friendly manner. The problem is defining “established loyalty,” “engaging with,” and “more than friendly manner.” At least with jeans there’s the muffin top test…

What follows is a break-down of the hundreds of infidelity-involving scenarios to a simpler list of infidelity-involving scenarios to evaluate which is cheating and which is just being a dick.

The Straight Cheat

You are in an exclusive relationship but proceed to engage physically with someone else without explicit permission from your significant other. Even a kiss with no tongue? Yes. What about just a sexy dance involving lots of touching on a club dance floor? Yes. So then definitely any form of feel up or down regardless of the fact that clothes are still on? Correct. Not a lot of grey area here.

The “On a Break” 

This is complicated because technically someone said, “let’s take a break.” If we’re being strict with definitions here “on a break” means the door to engaging with others is open. Someone can’t (very semantically speaking) cheat on you while you two are on a break.  Of course the terms of that “let’s talk” talk have a lot to do with how much of a dick someone is when they hook up with someone while on said break. As in: Monday – “Listen, I’m going through a really difficult time following the death of my grandmother and need some time alone.” Tuesday – “Yes, sure I will have one more funnel of Busch Heavy and then meet you back in your bed, girl who is not the girl I am on a break from.” Is it cheating – No. Is it someone you want to get back together with ever? No-er.

Strip Club Cheating

This is tough because it’s very dark in there and everyone is drunk. I’m going to defer to the very precise outline my friend Brian provided. Says Brian:

1. The “worker” touches any of your sex organs with her/his hands, mouth, or sex organs. This obviously includes overt sex acts (intercourse, oral sex) and explicitly outlaws hand to penis contact, even if it occurs outside clothing.

2. You touch the worker’s main sex organ (penis, vagina), even outside clothing.

3. There is any kissing whatsoever, even if not on the mouth.

Everything else is fair game. Notice that there is a biological double standard here as this definition allows for a guy in a strip club to get a full contact lap dance and touch T&A, whereas there’s not really an equivalent for a female in a male strip club (unless you consider male pectorals to be equivalent to female breasts). It also allows for a guy in a strip club to get a lap dance and ejaculate during it, whereas I’m nearly certain that there’s no way, under the rules above, a woman could get a lap dance from a man and have an orgasm. If she can, then I gotta meet the guy who did it. Notice also that it explicitly outlaws any participation in a “rub and tug” massage parlor. At that point, you might as well be visiting a hooker

Thank you Brian.  Agreed on all fronts. Also – quick word to the women.  If your loving and loyal boyfriend goes to a strip club with his buddies for an occasion (i.e. bachelor party), don’t badger him about what went on, what the girls looked like, if they were hotter than you, if he got a lap dance…list goes on. Let it go. You’re not going to like anything you hear, regardless of how PG it is. On the contrary – if your seemingly lovely and loyal boyfriend frequents strip clubs because it’s “what the guys do on a Thursday night” – break up with him.

Friend-Cheating

This one’s tough – for me especially. I posses of arguably too many close male friends that I haven’t yet and won’t ever date — not maybe men I secretly wish I was dating — just friends (stop looking at me like that — you know who you are). 

Because we’re very close we talk often, see each other a lot, and share many inside jokes/secrets. It would never be cheating for one of them to take me to dinner if he was in New York on business. It also wouldn’t be cheating if I went to one’s apartment to lounge on the couch and watch a movie. But these friendships start to cross a line into “not cool” territory if the platonic male/female friend set is spending more and more significant time together than the actual romantic couple.  If one of these friends clearly and frequently picks me over his girlfriend.  Again – not cheating – just not nice or respectful of the other girl and definitely not a good sign about her staying power.

Flirt Cheating aka “But Nothing Even Happened”

You – a girl with a serious boyfriend — are at a bar on a crowded Friday night. You start to make eyes with someone across the room who soon approaches. You two strike up a conversation that goes on for a considerable amount of time. The guy buys you a drink. You giggle a lot. Inside your head you think – oooh does this guy like me? Cheating is an outrageous accusation considering “nothing even happened” – which is exactly what you’ll tell your boyfriend when one of his friends sees this go down from across the bar and reports back. Bottom line, it’s not nice and it’s not loyal.

But like Liz says, “I think as women tend to be more emotional, we get upset with little things and consider it cheating. Flirting mainly as it is emotional is considered cheating by women in a relationship but the guy doesn’t think it is that big of a deal i.e. last week’s Hills episode. However if the situation were reversed the guy would flip and consider it a big deal. I think this harkens back to the boys will be boys mantra but for women it is devious and terrible if they were to talk to another man in a way that could be considered flirting.”

Which brings us to the very grey area that is Emotional Cheating

It’s like Brian the MVP of this blog post said – “I judge emotional cheating with Justice Stewart’s old characterization of pornography: ‘I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it.’

I won’t go into the endless details (incessant gchat convos, sneaky plans to end up in the same place, buying of very special gifts for a person) that can comprise emotional infidelity. I’ll just say this – if you found out someone was engaging in those same actions behind your back would you call it cheating? Would you be upset? Would you question their love for you? 

And, the ultimate test — if it’s really nothing then would you tell your significant other about every little detail involved in your relationship with this other person?  If your answer is, “no — they’d be absolutely crushed and we’d have a huge fight” bad sign.  If the answer is, “no — my girl/boyfriend is so possessive that I’m not even allowed to be close to my sister!” badder sign.

Cheat (v.): to deceive, deprive, mislead, elude, to act dishonestly, to violate rules…the definition goes on and on.

In a way – if you’re even questioning an act then there’s some element of dishonesty and disloyalty involved.  Why it happened, what it means to you, and what you plan to do about are three whole others issues (to be discussed…THIS WEEK…on CHEAT WEEK), but at the end of the day — it doesn’t matter who defines it as “cheating” and by what standards they’ve made that call — if it makes you feel hurt, surprised, betrayed, deceived, and much like-a-fool then it counts in your court.

Tomorrow: why do chronic cheaters even get into committed relationships in the first place?