I Don’t Care If You Didn’t Sleep With Her — If You Do Any Of These 10 Things, It’s Cheating

I Don’t Care If You Didn’t Sleep With Her — If You Do Any Of These 10 Things, It’s Cheating ©iStock/domoyega

Once you’ve decided to be exclusive with someone, a lot of things that were okay when you were single stop being acceptable. Obviously, not everything you do involving another member of the another sex is considered infidelity, but it’s actually shocking how many things people will try to justify as being “not a big deal” just because they didn’t put their mouth all over someone else’s crotch. Maybe you’ll be able to find another girl who doesn’t mind when you do this crap, but if you do it while dating me, I’m going to call a spade a spade and you a cheater:

  1. Exchanging nudes Don’t even argue with me that this is the “same thing as looking at sex online.” You and I both know that looking at naked pictures of a stranger and looking at pictures that were specifically sent to you by the naked subject of said pictures are two completely different things. And if you’re on the giving end of those photos, you’re completely delusional if you think you haven’t done anything wrong.
  2. Sexting Talking dirty with someone else thankfully doesn’t put me at risk for STDs, but that’s about the only thing that makes it slightly less repulsive than actually sleeping with another woman while we’re dating. Sexting may not involve physical contact, but it’s still a sexual act, and you’re not getting a free pass on it just because you “didn’t actually have sex with her.”
  3. Planning to “meet up” If you’ve made plans to meet up with another woman but end up not going because I caught you, I’m going to treat it the same way as if I hadn’t caught you. Why? Because I’ll know that the only reason you didn’t go is not because you didn’t want to sabotage your relationship, but because I found out what you were up to. If I hadn’t, you would have gone right ahead and done the deed anyway, and to me, that’s more than enough to be a dealbreaker.
  4. Lying about your relationship status Once we make things official, I am no longer just your “friend” or someone you’re “kind of seeing, but it’s nothing serious.” Should you try to use one of these lines on another woman to explain me away, I’ll know there’s only one reason for it, and it’s not one that I’ll tolerate.
  5. Kissing “But all we did was make out!” you protest. Yeah, and? I can’t believe I need to spell this out, but based on the number of guys who have tried to convince me or my friends that kissing isn’t cheating, I guess I do: Making out with another person while you’re in an exclusive relationship isn’t fine. Personally, I don’t consider it as bad as smushing your genitals together with someone else, but if you do it while you’re dating me, it’s going to lead to a breakup all the same.
  6. Letting her hit on you Just because you’re not the aggressor doesn’t mean you get a free pass. If another woman is sending you dirty pictures or hanging all over you at a party and you make no effort to discourage her, that’s not a whole lot better than if you were the one making all the moves.
  7. Hiding your conversations with her I’m not an idiot. If you’re tilting your phone away from me when you text her or have entire chunks of your chats deleted when I ask to see if your talks with her are really that innocent, I’m going to know something’s up. By hiding your interactions with her from me, you’re showing me that you know you’re doing something wrong and that I should be concerned.
  8. Prioritizing her over me I would never try to stop you from hanging out with a friend, but if you’re choosing to go to lunch with her over attending my mom’s birthday get-together, that’s not OK. I’m cool with being placed below family members on the scale of importance, but red flags are going to pop up everywhere in my mind if you’re giving your pretty young coworker more attention than you’re giving me.
  9. “Just chatting” on an online dating app You know what dating apps are used for? Dating. Shocking, I know. One of my favorite excuses guys use when they’re caught logging into their “old” online dating account is that they were just using it to make friends. Bruh, you and I both know that’s BS. You don’t walk into a candy shop hoping for a salad, and you don’t hop on Tinder to find a new BFF.
  10. Doing anything we’d previously agreed was not OK Everyone has different standards for what constitutes cheating and what doesn’t. If your previous girlfriend was cool with you going into the back room at strip clubs, hey, good for her. But I have different boundaries in a relationship. If we’ve talked about them and you choose to push past them anyway, I’m not going to be embarrassed to call you out on being the cheater you are.
Averi is a word nerd and Brazilian jiu jitsu brown belt. She's also a TEFL/TESOL-certified ESL teacher and an equine enthusiast. Originally from Pennsylvania, she lived in Costa Rica for a while before moving to Australia. In addition to her work as a writer and editor for Bolde, she also has bylines with Little Things and regularly writes for Jiu-Jitsu Times.

You can follow Averi on Instagram @bjjaveri or on Twitter under the same handle.
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