When does cheating actually become cheating?

When does seeing another person become a relationship?

Is it still cheating if there was no official acknowledgement of a commitment to begin with?

What if it’s not Facebook official?

Is it still considered cheating if there is no physical contact and only flirtation and verbal expressions of attraction?

During one of his countless relationship reparation shows, Dr. Phil acknowledged the existence of emotional cheating which requires no physical touch.

But then, Dr. Phil is also the man who called marijuana the gateway drug…but that’s another story.

The traditional rule of thumb for infidelity is that any exchange of words or actions that someone would not do with their significant other present is considered cheating.

However, in our generation where it is considered traditional for a groom to receive a lap dance from a naked stripper before he walks down the aisle, this guideline is entirely unrealistic.

So in the year 2010, among college students who are in the prime of their lives’ sexual appetite, when does it become cheating?

Some young people would agree that such intimate interactions as kissing on the lips or the touching of one another’s joy zones is the crossover from being a pusher of the limits to a flat- out cheater.

Other open-minded individuals believe that it cannot be considered cheating until penetration occurs.

Relationship faithfuls hold that any pursuit of a feeling of attraction toward someone other than your partner constitutes cheating.

But these simple explanations of what may be considered cheating do not even begin to cover the range of possible scenarios in which an individual’s faithfulness to their partner becomes debatable.

Is innocent flirting really innocent, or does it cross the line? And if so, when?

Not surprisingly, the majority of college-age students agree that playful text messages are harmless to a relationship.

At the same time, however, it is inevitable that if someone in a relationship were to discover this sort of text on their partner’s phone, they would resort to accusations of unfaithfulness.

In this case, it seems logical to trust Adam Sandler’s words in “The Waterboy” when he stated, “What Mama don’t know won’t hurt her.”

If caught, then make a sincere apology, and if not then no harm done.

Unfortunately there are some who find their consciences too torturous to keep even the most trivial incidents from their significant other.

This makes them either exceptionally honest or drama hungry in the sense that there is no real need to disclose such information to their partner, but they crave the excitement of arguments generated by jealousy and heartache.

Don’t we all, though, from time to time?

While hosting his Hot 99.5 Kane Show in the morning, Kane stated that he firmly believes that the confessing of one’s cheating is purely a selfish act made in the attempt to relieve oneself of a guilty conscience.

Why tell your boyfriend or girlfriend that you were unfaithful if all it will do is cause them pain and take some guilt off your shoulders?

Aside from the nitpicky details of cheating scenarios, cheating does appear to be in the eye of the beholder, leaving it up to cheater and cheatee to decide if infidelity has taken place.

Only the people affected by the incident are in a place to say how it should be dealt with and for those who are lost as to how to handle it, look into the eye-for-an-eye rule.

Or maybe they can just write to Michatalie and see if they can offer some words of advice.