Deleting is Cheating: Infidelity, Sexting and other Naughties

All is going well in your relationship and it is all flowers and rainbows. But you notice that your SO is being very shady with her phone. Let’s talk about cheating.

Social media like Facebook and Instagram definitely simplify our lives and is probably the main reason why we are still in touch with classmates from kindergarten, an old friend that moved to Madagascar or your cousin’s girlfriend’s neighbour.  But when you are in a relationship making online connections might not be a good idea.

When our grandparents felt the urge to cheat, they would have to meet someone first, like in actual real life. And then they had to do the classic ‘staying late at work’, send a cheeky fire signal to let the side piece know that mainman is around or hide the box with written notes in a far, dark place.

Nowadays, your significant other could be on the sofa watching TV with you while chatting up cousin Harvey’s girlfriend’s neighbour who just added him on Facebook.

We can divide online cheating in two sections. One is the ‘innocent’ cybersex where you just talk about sex and show your stimulated bodyparts to Kai who lives a million miles away in Japan. John Portmann’s In Defense of Sin argues that such activity is more similar to innocuous flirting than to having an actual affair. The other form of online cheating is chatting up people that you are likely to meet up with in real life.  Here is an example given by a Reddit user in research for Aziz Anzari’s Modern Romance.

He started an affair that he simply wouldn’t have had the gumption to start without Facebook. They worked together and were casual acquaintances. One day he looked her up on Facebook and sent her a message asking, “Would you like to get a drink sometime?” Soon after that the affair began

“If Facebook didn’t exist, I doubt I would have gathered the courage to ask her directly. It made the initial step that much easier.”

“Mild, in-person flirtation is often fleeting and superficial, but when communication extends to social media, texts, and email, your partner becomes available 24/7 for temptation and increased emotional connection” Psychology Today, 2014

How come we are so quickly to be tempted into having an affair via social media? (Apart from the fact that we are all sex-mad, genitals-following zombies.)

According to Affair Recovery, a few of the reasons are:

1. Accessibility: The Internet provides access to people we would probably not rub elbows with in our normal life.
2. The Online Disinhibition Effect: Due to the invisibility provided by the Internet, people are less inhibited and will say or do things online they would never speak or do to someone in person. (Yas, you finally dare to send a message to that fit bird that always comes to spinning class on Tuesdays)
3. The Illusion of Secrecy: This allows for my own self-gratification. No one will ever know I’m living a secret life and fulfilling my fantasies while living as a married person.
4. Escapism: The fact that one can seemingly escape the responsibilities of real life like bills, mood swings, deadlines, mortgages etc, provides a context of fantasy and escapism.

In the Netherlands there is even a datingsite for cheaters: “Find you Second Love Here” – for which adverts are blatantly shown on primetime TV, lol, all hail the Dutch’s guts.

The rise of Snapchat, Instagram and Twitter’s Direct Messaging feature, it is all too easy to cross the line. But because the lines are so blurred, it is hard to determine when something can be regarded as cheating. Of course, the jealousy level of your partner plays a big deal. I know some guys that will freak out when their woman likes another man’s  picture.

It all comes down to how you use it. Spoons and forks don’t make people fat, using them to put food in your mouth d
oes. Social media does not cause break-ups. People that use it do.

Now, I have to admit that I am quite a jealous person but it seems reasonable to say that everything that comes with and after deleting, is cheating.

And boy, best believe that things are going from a 0 to a 100 real quick if I notice even one of these signs. Clothes out of the window.

And that’s probably why I’m single.