The Digital World Of Cheating: Facebook, Gchat, Texting, Sexting - Part 3

If there's no evidence of a physical relationship, is he still cheating?

Even if you didn't find dirty e-mails and receipts of hotel rooms, that doesn't mean it's not cheating. There are two forms of cheating: physical and emotional.

"Cheating is not just having sexual intercourse with a person who is not your partner in, what is supposedly, an exclusive relationship," Lieberman says.

"It can include emotional cheating, which is having fantasies of wanting to be with someone else or flirting with someone else in the hopes that they will begin to flirt with you so that you can claim that it was their fault.  Even engaging in sexual activities that don't include intercourse can be considered cheating."

In the survey, 58 percent of collegiettes™ said if their significant other was texting/Facebooking someone else secretively, they would consider it to be cheating.

And Dr. Lieberman agreed.

"If your significant partner is 'secretively' texting, Facebooking, or doing anything with a woman who they have some sexual interest in, it is cheating. The key word is 'secretively' because this implies a betrayal of trust, which is a form of cheating, even if they have never met in person," she said.

One collegiette™ said she's been on the other side of digital cheating, as in, the other woman.

"I was the girl who a guy was constantly texting even though he had a girlfriend," said *Catherine, a junior at Depaul University. "He never told her about it. It's emotional cheating. And it may or may not turn physical. In my case with this guy, it didn't ever turn physical, but his girlfriend and a lot of other people thought we did more than talk. He would text me flirtatious things and he told me on several occasions that he could see us dating, and this was when he still had a girlfriend. Most of this happened via text message, but we'd meet up and talk in person sometimes too."

A Guy's Perspective

But according to real-life college men, rather than snooping they suggest that you talk to your boy about your mounting suspicions first.

"If there's something you want to know, you should just come out and ask it. Snooping around will only cause more suspicion from whoever you're snooping on. If they're hiding something it will come out anyways," said Brad*, a recently graduated senior at Iowa State University.

But when asked if he would feel betrayed or hurt if his girlfriend snooped around his digital world, he said no.
"I don't really have anything to hide in there, so it's not that. It just makes me feel like she's got questions she's just not asking," Brad* said.

Another college guy, Dereck* at Cornell University, also said he would advise not to snoop.

"I would suggest not to snoop because it will just create unnecessary problems in your relationship," he said. "However, if you have one-hundred percent proof of cheating then maybe it would be okay."
 
A Hopeful Future

Even though 65 percent of the surveyed collegiettes™ admitted to snooping, the remaining percent assured us that when you're in the right relationship, the act of snooping will be out of the question.

"With my current boyfriend of almost three years, I've never felt the need to snoop through his Facebook, e-mail or phone. When he leaves his Facebook logged in at my place, I automatically just log him out. With my ex, I wouldn't have been able to help myself. With my current boyfriend, I trust him completely and know that he has nothing to hide," said Chrissy at Penn State University.
 
What it all comes down to is the line you and your significant other draw between what is and what is not acceptable. What most collegiettes™ and Dr. Lieberman agreed on though is that if he's hiding something from you, it should be something to be concerned about. And if you have a feeling that you need to snoop, that too, should be a red flag in your relationship.

What do you think, collegiettes™? Share your snooping stories below.
 
Sources:
Dr. Carole Lieberman, author of Bad Girls: Why We Love Them & How Good Girls Can Learn Their Secrets. 
Anonymous college students