How are all these people getting together … When there are so many ways to cheat?

Since Christmas is fast approaching, let me tell you about the first holiday season I spent seeing someone.

Last December, Draper — my situationship — and I were going strong, but the holiday break was looming. I knew we were both going back home, so I suggested we have our own little Christmas night. To my delight, he agreed.

His apartment was decorated for Christmas, with a tree dotted with lights and some classic homemade ornaments. We ordered burgers from the Brown Hound and hit Atlantic Superstore for some canned cinnamon buns I could pop in the oven (my version of baking). 

While the buns baked and the air filled with sweet cinnamon, we cuddled on his couch and watched Klaus (2019), one of my favourite Christmas movies.

The next morning, we brewed coffee, enjoyed the leftover cinnamon buns and eventually got dressed for the day. 

I was embarrassingly happy. Finally, I had someone to share the season with, even if we weren’t technically dating. I went to bed the next night feeling fulfilled.

But that same night, Draper went out with some co-workers, got drunk and hooked up with one of my friends. 

I didn’t find out about it until May. 

I then asked myself a big question: Was it cheating?

Nowadays, there are so many different relationship definitions. Talking stages, situationships and the mind-boggling exclusive-but-still-not-calling-it-a-relationship stage. In university, I find it’s more common for people to be in those undefinable-yet-somehow-defined situations rather than clear relationships. 

In one of these situations, is it even possible to cheat? If you set boundaries that someone clearly breaks, some would say that’s cheating. Others believe that unless you’re in an established relationship, you can’t actually cheat.

When I told my friends what Draper did, some immediately declared it cheating. But some also said they wouldn’t necessarily label it that, although they did think it was awful and crossed a boundary. 

Draper and I weren’t exclusive, but we’d previously said hooking up with friends wouldn’t be cool (which I think should just be an unspoken rule). 

Months before, warned him about this “friend” when I found out she had a habit of going after guys her friends were seeing. At the time, he agreed she sounded crazy and assured me I had nothing to worry about. I trusted him. 

Whoops.

Even when you’re in an actual relationship, there are now different actions that leave the boundaries of cheating a bit blurry. 

Micro-cheating, while not technically full-blown physical cheating, consists of actions you still wouldn’t want your partner knowing about — like flirting with a stranger or DMing someone.

Emotional cheating, on the other hand, is where you haven’t done anything physical with someone else, but have formed an emotionally intimate bond, potentially threatening the one you have with your partner. 

So, with all the grey areas in modern dating, what even constitutes cheating and what’s just bad behaviour? 

All of these cheating gray areas have one thing in common: the feeling of betrayal. 

Whatever your partner may have done, the fact that you feel betrayed is undeniable. No matter your relationship classification, most must have an idea of what their partner wouldn’t be okay with. And if you feel guilty, or you’re hiding something, that’s a pretty clear indication you’ve done something wrong. 

Because cheating has become increasingly difficult to define, wouldn’t it be more accurate to say, “They betrayed me.”? This takes away the obsession with labelling the action and instead identifies and validates your feelings. 

It also takes away what some people use as a cop-out. When someone crosses a line in non-exclusive situations, they can hide behind the technicality of not actually cheating to make themselves feel better. All while the other person is feeling hurt, betrayed, and questioning whether their feelings are valid — it’s safe to say they usually are valid.

Draper at least gave me that. 

We ended things in February, but when I found out about him and my friend, I asked him to meet and talk about it. I told him that in a situation where it was almost impossible to cheat, it still felt like he cheated. He agreed that’s what it was. 

But I still hated how I questioned if I was allowed to feel hurt. It piled on anxiety to an already awful situation. 

In the end, does the cheating declaration even matter? I know it can be important to some, and it was for me at the time, but the most important thing is how you handle it. 

Actions that betray your trust can hurt deeply. But it helps to remind yourself that their actions are a reflection of them, not you. No matter why they acted that way — whether it was pure thoughtlessness or due to personal issues — it was shitty.

You can walk away with the consolation that you’re the bigger person with your head held high. At least you have a new, more definitive label for that chapter in your life: over.How are all these people getting together … When there are so many ways to cheat?