82 COSMOPOLITAN SEPTEMBER 2017 FOR MORE GREAT STORIES, VISIT COSMO.INlove & lust
I
s it your colleague? Your gym
instructor? What we’re asking
is, could you be inadvertently
cheating on your partner? It’s a
loaded question but, you see, there’s
this thing called micro-cheating
and it’s not something so ridiculous
or sinister that you’d assume you
haven’t done it. It’s not danger and
blaring sirens—and it’s usually a
subconscious action. Still, it’s not all
sunshine and commitment, either,
and could signal something that
needs attention in your relationship.
In a relationship nutshell, micro-
cheating is the term that describes
all the small things we do that could
have whispers of infidelity, without
actually, physically being unfaithful.
Micro-cheating can take you into
territories you might regret. Think
of it as the little sister to emotional
cheating, sans that deep emo-
connection that would otherwise
derail a relationship (side note: it’s
said that emotional cheating can
hurt much more than its physical
counterpart).But given micro-cheating can
build the blocks to something
more, it evidently doesn’t take
physically smacking your lips on a
juicy new conquest to spell trouble.
The first step to note? A little
overzealous flirtation.
“[It’s] the little things you do to
show someone you fancy them; it
doesn’t ever become physical and
it’s not really emotional,” explains
Desiree Spierings, Director at Sexual
Health Australia. “With emotional
cheating, you definitely share a lot of
personal information with this person
in the way of thoughts, feelings and
desires, and on top of that you have
real emotional feelings for this person
that goes further than attraction.”WARNING SIGNS
Signs you’re paddling in the shallows
of danger, according to Desiree,
include dressing differently when
you know you’re going to be seeing
a certain person, withholding
information from your partnerYou haven’t bought the T-shirt, sure, but if you’re
window shopping in unfaithful-town and shooting
flirty-eyes at the salesman, let us introduce you to
a little thing called micro-cheating. By Mel EvansPhotograph:SHUTTERSTOCK.COMAre You
Micro
Cheating?
HINT: IT’S LIKELY
about who you’re hanging with, or
lying by omission. It could even be
the fact that you’re always liking
and commenting on one guy’s
Instagram pics. And the guy isn’t
Zac Efron. It’s a real guy. “Also,
when you don’t disclose you’re in a
relationship, or minimise the status
of your relationship on purpose, it’s
the same as seeking contact with
someone unnecessarily for advice on
small topics or going out of your way
to speak to someone else, following
them on social media to the point
where you know quite a few details
about their life, and developing an
interest in someone else to the point
you’ll do things that are completely
unnecessary just to have minor
contact with them,” she continues.
‘It’s just harmless fun’, you say. And
yeah, we agree—to an extent. Every