Is Micro-cheating A Big Deal?
Cathy: What is micro-cheating and should you be concerned about it? I’m here with Reid Mihalko from https://reidaboutsex.com/ who’s doing his getting rid of the shine.
Reid: I’m all oily.
Cathy: And I’m Cathy Vartuli from http://theintimacydojo.com/
Reid: I want to look professional.
Cathy: And you’re doing that during the video. I don’t think that’s how it’s done.
Reid: We’ve been eating delicious food and…and watching Agents of Shield
Cathy: And working hard at kajabi
Reid: and working hard on things so hi, everyone! It’s Reid and Cathy, what’s going on Cathy? What are we going to talk about today?
Cathy: So, there’s this new trend, people talking about micro-cheating
Reid: Micro-cheating?
Cathy: Yeah, so if your partner flirts a little bit with someone or asked another woman, normally it’s in a very heteronormative way
Reid: Okay
Cathy: but they’re considering if the gentleman calls a woman friend to find out advice that he could Google, that was one of the things they list as micro-cheating
Reid: Micro-cheating?
Cathy: Yeah, it’s like cheating, but little ways like it’s a way to
Reid: Why, so if I ask a friend for advice that I could Google
Cathy: If it’s a female friend that you’re kind
Reid: it’s like lazy fidelity?
Cathy: I guess.
Reid: What do you kids doing out there? What are you doing out there? Think, think, think. What are you coming out with? Think, think, think. [Inaudible 00:01:14] you cheated or you didn’t cheat
Cathy: I think
Reid: There’s no question about it.
Cathy: I think it’s
Reid: Get off my lawn
Cathy: Some of the things that we’re talking about made sense to me like if you’re not telling other people that you’re in a relationship
Reid: Or that you’re asking for advice?
Cathy: No, I mean there’s a whole list of things they were talking about
Reid: What if I used to like Yahoo search and not Google, is Google think I’m micro-cheating?
Cathy: Possibly.
Reid: Remember Ask Jeeves? Anyone? You kids do you remember Ask Jeeves?
Cathy: Yeah, yeah, and what was the one with the Labrador, the dog that’s gonna go get….
Reid: No, I don’t know.
Cathy: Anyway, so the idea is that there’s this little thing that people do that that’s not the same as sleeping with someone or having a relationship with someone that subtracts from the core relationship.
Reid: Okay.
Cathy: And they are not supposed to be more happy to see somebody else than your own partner in any given time.
Reid: Because it’s not fair?
Cathy: It’s not fair, it might subtract from the power of the initial, the core relationship.
Reid: Okay.
Cathy: And so to me, part of it is like what are your agreements like do you actually have specific agreements with your partner about these things? If you’ve agreed to that, then you might be like
Reid: What are the kind of cheating work for you, I mean, obviously like sexting with somebody and hiding it
Cathy: Yeah
Reid: if you don’t have a Don’t-Ask-Don’t-Tell policy
Cathy: Right.
Reid: And with Don’t-Ask-Don’t-Tell, if you’re gonna set that up and I don’t recommend that you do
Cathy: Yeah
Reid: but if you’re gonna set that up then have like a list of kind of like, “Well, here is what Don’t-Ask-Don’t-Tell kinda covers.”
Cathy: Yeah
Reid: Just so that you, you kinda know what the umbrella of Don’t-Ask-Don’t-Tell would cover, but okay, so sexting would be micro-cheating or is that like macro-cheating like is there a….
Cathy: Let’s push in the edges of micro-cheating I would guess or
Reid: Okay, well you’re a scientist, Ph.D. Scientist by the way
Cathy: Yeah, but not
Reid: With patents in her name. So, just from a sciency perspective, you’ve got micro, what’s the next level up for micro for like, like a microscope, what…is there a….
Cathy: Just a regular
Reid: Distoscope?
Cathy: Distoscope like and then you have
Reid: and then like a Telescope
Cathy: Yeah
Reid: Okay.
Cathy: But, one of the things another one they were saying was a
Reid: So, Tela-cheating is there aTela-cheating? What is this…
Cathy: probably
Reid: I’m being sassy because I think this is interesting.
Cathy: Another example was, if I’m hanging out with a friend that I kind of I’m interested and I imply that my relationship is might be breaking up soon, even though I know it’s not like that’s micro-cheating, I’m like kind of like hinting, kind of keeping people on you know like implying that the relationship isn’t as strong as it is or hiding the relationship so that I can flirt and have more connection to other people.
Reid: Okay, so what…what do you want me to rule on here? Like what is your question, like what…
Cathy: Well, I just like
Reid: what are my thoughts?
Cathy: Yeah, it’s like
Reid: I’ve never heard of micro-cheating. I have to, I have to [Inaudible 00:03:53]
Cathy: Oh, you’re just fond of Facebook
Reid: I’m just an old man now. Well, so here…here’s a couple of things, there’s…coming up with language for things can be useful, right? Because it’s hard to talk about things if you don’t have words for them. It’s hard to like you know talk….to be able to name something then you can talk about it and like you could be nerdy and go down the hole like semiotics you know rabbit hole of if you don’t have words, then it’s hard to talk about things and have actual conversation would be hard to come up with agreements and protocols for things that don’t have names.
Cathy: Right.
Reid: Right? And if we’re gonna have agreements where we kind of collaborate and come up with a thing that feels like a good spot, right? Like you’ve got here…we’re doing….hold that, I’ll hold this, so these are my boundaries and everything on the outside of this, I’m a no to; everything on the inside of the square, I’m a yes to; and the stuff in the middle, a hell yes, but also on the edges kind of like a hmmmm you know maybe I’m not into this but I’m still a yes but everything I’m a yes to on the inside. Cathy, boundaries, no, aw, aw. These are all Cathy’s edges that we now come into No Land, No Ville and then Yes Ville. So, if you don’t have words to talk about things, then it’s hard for us to talk about our needs and our wants and our desires and then find where
Cathy: The Venn diagram
Reid: where we have the overlap and it’s in the overlap where our yeses meet is where we should play because that’s the sweet spot where I don’t have to be like “come on over to this corner, Cathy. If you don’t love me, you, you know if you love me, you would come over here.” Like it’s not about that because there’s all this stuff that Cathy is a yes to that I don’t have to be a yes to. If we can’t talk about it, then we can’t make agreements and find where this…where the overlap is.
Cathy: Right.
Reid: Right? So naming something is useful. The challenge of micro is for one person, micro means less than so it’s not really cheating.
Cathy: Yeah, no one play on penis and something else or you know
Reid: It’s a micro-cheat but for other people, it’s you know being able to talk about it is “No like this isn’t cheating, cheating the way that universe talks about it but this is like kind of a micro-cheat. So I’m like this is where it’s problematic, right? Like you start making things nuanced, it’s useful, but I’m curious about like what would be the opposite of not the opposite of micro-cheating but like what would be like self-expression like flirting. For some people, flirting isn’t a
Cathy: A cheating
Reid: like flirting is a place where they kind of overlap, right?
Cathy: Yeah
Reid: I’m gonna put it this way, you know so there’s overlap I’m like, “Okay, we can flirt in that in like this is fine, just don’t fall in love with anybody or don’t date somebody or don’t sleep with somebody.” You asking for advice from a friend when you could Google it well, maybe you’re just a shitty Googler and I understand.
Cathy: Or you just wanted to talk to your friend.
Reid: Yeah, or you like asking your friends for things because you’re old and you don’t necessarily think to Google or watch a YouTube video about the freaking thing, you reach out, you post on Facebook “Hey, can somebody help me.” Am I micro-cheating?
Cathy: I wouldn’t consider that micro-cheating, but they did list it in the article.
Reid: Yeah, I…I would say where it’s interesting is if you have an agenda
Cathy: Yeah
Reid: that you know of and you’re not copping to it, then you’re not being as truthful or “Fidelis”
Cathy: Yeah
Reid: as you could be because for me, fidelity has nothing to do with sexual fidelity or emotional fidelity because in my relationship with Allison, she can fall in love with other people
Cathy: Yeah
Reid: and I’m okay with that, that’s why we’re polyamorous. However, if she fell in love with somebody and didn’t tell me
Cathy: That would be
Reid: it would be weird because she’s not being truthful.
Cathy: Yeah
Reid: And if she needed to fall in love with somebody and not tell me for her own privacy reasons, I mean she could call that like she could play that card but we would still have a conversation about her privacy needs, right? Or she would come to me and be like, “Hey, there’s something I realize I need to be able to fall in love and I have to talk to you about it.” And I’d be like, “Okay, I don’t know how I feel about that. Let me go feel how I feel about that and then come back and let’s have a conversation and figure out if we can create an agreement.
Cathy: Yeah
Reid: But micro, micro-cheating huh?
Cathy: Yeah, it’s a thing now and people are getting in trouble. I love the idea of talking about it.
Reid: People are getting in trouble how…you had the articles, right?
Cathy: Yeah, so the article was written for hetero, hetero, in a very heteronormative way for women to like call their boyfriends about it.
Reid: Okay.
Cathy: And they were saying like these are micro-cheating things and you know you shouldn’t let your boyfriend do that or your partner do that.
Reid: What magazine or publication was this?
Cathy: I forgot, I don’t know. I’m sorry.
Reid: Alright, no, it’s okay. I’m not you know tell me! No, it’s not like that.
Cathy: I’ve seen the concept elsewhere, but this article
Reid: Yeah, well, and that sounds like “slippery slope”
Cathy: Yeah
Reid: which also sounds like
Cathy: “You looked at her. Oh my god!”
Reid: Well, I mean, yeah, but you should be able to have conversations about these things.
Cathy: What’s important
Reid: Because “slippery slope” usually means from my perspective, people can’t control themselves, which also usually means people don’t know how to talk about it
Cathy: Yeah
Reid: so they build, they build this, they draw this line of you can’t do this and then what happens with micro-cheating is you can’t….I don’t think anybody could tell me all the things that fit into the bucket of micro-cheating.
Cathy: Yeah
Reid: so then somebody’s in this weird place where how do they win.
Cathy: Yeah
Reid: And now we’re back to from my perspective like what’s your intention in relationships, what are your agreements and then
Cathy: Yeah, and are you honoring the agreements?
Reid: Yeah, and then how do you make each other feel loved, honored, and cherished because if I can make Allison feel loved, honored, and cherished then there’s a good chance she doesn’t really
Cathy: care
Reid: care or isn’t threatened or worried by me asking my friend you know for an answer that I could Google.
Cathy: Yeah
Reid: I don’t know.
Cathy: No, I think that’s…thanks. Yeah, I wanted to talk about it ‘coz I was reading and I was like some of them I could see like most relationships, monogamous relationships would consider that cheating but a lot of them I felt were like, “Oh wow. People should make agreements about that, not just being in trouble if they did them.” So, thank you.
Reid: Yeah, I thought it was useful. What do you think?
Cathy: Yeah, we’d love to know what you think. Please leave comments below.
Reid: See and I mostly
Cathy: We’ll turn another video and you can put more on.
Reid: Bye.