Flirting/Talking is Not Cheating

Flirting/talking is not cheating.

If you’re here reading this you probably disagree with that statement, so I’ll just say this. While flirting/talking can be a violation of the mutual boundaries you decided upon when you formed your relationship (assuming you set boundaries and expectations after talking with your partner).

It should never be put on the same level as cheating, they are not the same offenses, and therefore, should not carry the same punishments/consequences.

Crossing the line and ACTually cheating is far harder to forgive and recover from then talking/flirting.  In fact, talking/flirting (to some level) can be acceptable in some relationships and there are even relationships that have almost no boundaries where it would be hard to ever label someone a cheater.

These types of relationships usually have just one condition — honesty.

In the movie, “The Minority Report”, detectives work to prevent crime before it happens. To do this, they get “reports” from these 3 super beings that are immersed in a permanent dreamlike state and have the ability to “sometimes” see things in the future.

The problem is that all three didn’t always agree with the events that would transpire, hence “The Minority Report”, but when one of them didn’t agree with the other two it was ignored but they still made an arrest on someone that may have not have actually gone on to commit a crime.

This is important because there has been a lot of confusion between what is “talk” and what is “action” stemming around relationships, so I’ll make this simple. Thoughts lead to talk and talk leads to action. Thoughts are thoughts, talk is talk, and action is action.  Neither thoughts or talk are action.

Before I get into the relationship aspect of this, you must understand that there is not a “common” set of rules that governs all relationships, but rather, each relationship is completely unique and that each relationship has its own set of ground rules for what is acceptable behavior and expected.

Do not make the mistake of assuming everyone is on the same page as far as relationship boundaries, make sure to have this talk with your partner to see what they think is “crossing the line” and see if you can come to some agreement before you run into an issue down the road where you expected something from another person without talking to them because that’s how “normal” relationships work — keep in mind, there’s no such thing as “normal”.

So let’s talk about the group of people that consider talking or flirting the same as cheating — sorry, it is not. 

You cannot judge someone by their actions and claim that their actions are talking, talking is only a literal action, action is acting upon the things you talk about.

This does not mean to say that thinking or talking “inappropriately” doesn’t affect your significant other, each relationship is unique and comes with its own agreed upon set of boundaries and respectful limitations. Your partner may not like that you talk or flirt, but that DOES NOT carry the same weight as the act of cheating. 

If someone tries to accuse you of cheating for non-action then they are most likely trying to make themselves into victims for a victim-less behavior.  Even if you both agreed that talking is against the rules, do not tag it with the stigma of cheating, cheating is a serious thing, you can simply say someone violated your agreement or didn’t respect you without going to that extreme.

Here’s another way to think about this.

If you think about killing someone or talk about killing someone, is that the same as murder? 

The answer is no, in fact, if you just think about it, no one else is going to even know.  However, if you talk about it, it’s still not a crime unless you make a legitimate attempt or believable attempt to plan or follow through with it.  

Even in this case, it is still not the same as murder, the crime becomes conspiracy or intent to commit murder, it does not carry the same weight as actually attempting to kill someone or killing someone.

Thus, talking or flirting is not cheating, at best it becomes conspiracy to cheat, but only if a legitimate attempt or plan is set to follow through with it.

There’s literally a plethora of quotes and sayings about talking and doing.

• Talk is cheap, mother fucker if you’re really feeling frogish leap – Eminem
• Little less talk, lot more action – Toby Keith
• You can talk the talk, but can you walk the walk.
• All talk and no action.

There are so many quotes from songs or sayings, but they all mean the same thing, you can talk all you want but until you make good on or prove yourself with real action, it’s just talk.

So by no means with so much legal precedent combined with life quotes should we all of a sudden make an exception for relationships and consider talk and action the same thing.  Again, that is just behavior of people seeking attention and trying to make themselves into victims while empowering them to accuse others of doing wrong, some people get off on this type of stuff.

If watching porn (fantasizing about having physical intimacy with another human being) is not considered cheating in most relationships, then how can we make the leap to say that talking to someone in a fanciful fantasy filled way is somehow worse than pretending to have sex with another person while masturbating.

I mean…let’s be real here.  And please take the high road, don’t go down to the level of “emotional” cheating, now you’re just making stuff up to be a victim again. If it’s emotional, and nothing has actually happened, then it’s in your head, fix it — don’t take it out on another person.

Feel free to tell me your thoughts on this topic in the comments below.