Technology has made the parameters of cheating much harder to pin down. There’s physical cheating, obviously; then there’s emotional cheating, sexting, sliding into DMs, liking someone’s bikini photos, keeping an ex on standby—or what’s now known as “microcheating.”Technology has made the parameters of cheating much harder to pin down. There’s physical cheating, obviously; then there’s emotional cheating, sexting, sliding into DMs, liking someone’s bikini photos, keeping an ex on standby—or what’s now known as “microcheating.”
I was on Instagram late one night, scrolling through the feeds of various models (I’m always looking for new and exciting ways to experience insomnia), when I noticed that my friend’s boyfriend was all over their comment sections, leaving hearts and emojis on a bunch of different girls’ photos.
Ew, I thought. Not because leaving a heart emoji is, in itself, some terrible offense, but because there’s something bleak about seeing a man you know in real life working his way through a stranger’s thirst traps while his girlfriend, presumably, has no idea.
Technology has made the parameters of cheating much harder to pin down. There’s physical cheating, obviously; then there’s emotional cheating, sexting, sliding into DMs, liking someone’s bikini photos, keeping an ex on standby—or what’s now known as “microcheating.”
According to basically every definition that comes up when I google it, microcheating covers a collection of small, subtle behaviors that violate the trust within a relationship without crossing the line into physical sex. They’re usually things you hide from your partner because somewhere, deep down, you know they’re wrong. That could mean texting someone and deleting the messages afterward. Flirting over DM. Going on dating apps “just to look.” Exchanging numbers with someone at a party. In other words, all the little things you’d probably be less inclined to do if your partner were standing next to you, watching.
Throughout my relationships, I’ve learned that trust and loyalty aren’t just things you owe your partner; they cut both ways. When you sneak around and hide things, you’re introducing secrecy where there used to be innocence. You’re teaching yourself, little by little, that it’s okay to be deceitful. And eventually, even if nobody can point to the exact moment when it happened, the relationship starts to feel different.
So maybe my friend genuinely doesn’t care that her boyfriend leaves hearts on the photos of girls he’s “friends with” or “worked with.” Maybe that’s completely fine for them. But for me? It’s a boundary I’m no longer willing to cross.
