I get asked one question time and time again at my seminars: When you’re in a relationship, is it okay to talk to other women and flirt? And is flirting considered cheating?
Everyone has his or her own opinion on this. The issue often emerges for both sexes. The answer to the conundrum starts with you. How secure are you in your own skin to flirt without consequences? How much do you trust yourself?
Let me break down what my years of experience are telling me.
Is flirting cheating?
Is the act of flirting cheating in of itself akin to kissing or sleeping with someone else?
Clearly not. But a lot of the guys who join me on my 7-Day Programme have just come out of a relationship, and many of them report feeling rusty, or that they no longer have the skills or confidence to approach women. They obviously haven’t been talking to women all that much, and this left them with dented confidence when re-entering the dating world.
This shouldn’t be the case. Building confidence is about being social, and being social with women naturally results in flirty rapport from time to time.
These are not just seduction skills. These are people skills, and it pays to keep them sharp in any walk of life.
You shouldn’t be going out looking for women to flirt with. But it’s okay to flirt and tease people if you know you can leave it there and walk away before anything of consequence happens.
But ‘is flirting considered cheating?’ is a question you and your partner need to answer, not me.
Is flirting considered cheating in a relationship?
Flirting takes on a different colour once you frame it in the context of a relationship. There are expectations and a certain dedication that is the bare minimum of a committed relationship.
Therefore, if you do want the freedom to flirt with women outside of the relationship, you cannot let double standards enter the equation. If this is something you want to start doing, your woman should also be allowed. If you clip the wings of a bird and let it out of its cage, it will still try to escape.
Flirt as much as you want, but communicate with each other about it. The perception of flirting with other people is entirely down to the trust and respect between the two of you.
It can be a great exercise. If you’re not flirting and you don’t get to flex that social muscle, you might start to feel conflicted, and it might actually push you towards other women.
However, if flirting with other people is part of the relationship’s dynamic, you can get the validation and confidence boost provided by a flirty encounter without causing any emotional damage or breaking any trust.
Depriving each other of that experience can drive the other person into someone else’s arms. You don’t want to sleep with another woman. You just want to know you’ve still got it. Everyone craves that validation and confidence.
If you let her get that fix of confidence, she will bring that right back into your relationship and sex life. Don’t be jealous, just as you would expect her not to be jealous of you. It’s such a turn-off.
‘Cheating’ literally means ‘playing against the rules.’ So if you haven’t set the parameters of your relationship to include a little light flirting from time to time when it comes up, it’s going to create problems if you talk to other women in a certain way.
However, if you and your partner openly communicate, there is nothing intrinsically harmful about this and it can actually carry some great benefits for the relationship once flirting outside the relationship is given the okay.
Is online flirting cheating?
This, again, depends on how proactive you’re being.
If you’ve got Tinder set up and you’re throwing your weight around on there, or you’re leaving spicy comments on other girls’ Facebook walls, it’s naturally going to raise some eyebrows.
Likewise, it doesn’t really have the same impact on your confidence that a real-life flirtation would. If you have to ask yourself ‘is flirting on Facebook cheating?’ you have to follow that with why am I flirting with a bunch of girls on the internet?’
It’s fun in the moment, but if you have a relationship, it’s obviously not ticking every box if you’re at home finding other women with whom to distract yourself.
Besides, you don’t exactly want these encounters to exist in writing. It’s one thing your partner being cool about knowing that you flirt with others, but it’s another entirely to read the encounter. If you leave your laptop flipped open or unlocked, you could be in for a world of hurt. Is that really worth it?
In short, don’t go looking for it, but, as long as you’re open about it, don’t immediately shut it down if it comes to you.
Find out more about the finer elements of managing relationships on my 7-Day Course. Discover a more confident you at www.johnnycassell.com/exclusive-training.