What “Micro-Cheating” Means In Today’s Digital Age

As is the case with most things these days, the online world has changed what we used to think of as cheating, expanding the definition and creating a murkier understanding of what actually counts as being unfaithful.

“No, I don’t want a boyfriend. I’m never falling in love again,” lip syncs a TikTok user, with the words “me realizing how almost all married men cheat,” written across the video. The comments echoed her sorrowful sentiments: “And mostly while their partner is pregnant. Kills me.” “My ex slept with a bartender 3 weeks before proposing to me.” “I don’t know a single man that’s loyal.” You get the picture.

While it’s not true that almost all married men cheat (the stats suggest that about 20% of married men are unfaithful to their wives), what is true is that enough women have stories of being cheated on to make the rest of the female population start to panic. If it can happen to her, what’s to say it can’t happen to me?

And so, women become suspicious of their male counterparts, reading into every action and word and behavior in the hopes of catching on to his infidelity. Is he actually just hanging out with his guy friends, or is he on the prowl? Why did he hurry off the phone when you walked into the room? Is that pretty coworker really just a friend?

The worry of being cheated on is as alive in the hearts of women today as it ever was. Except these days, it seems there are even more ways to be cheated on, more things to be insecure about, more questions that don’t have any comforting answers. After all, we now have something called “micro-cheating” to offer us even more distress.

What Is Micro-Cheating?

Maybe your boyfriend liked an Instagram model’s skimpy bikini picture, or maybe he still follows that one ex you’ve wondered if he ever got over, or maybe he has a long Snapchat streak with a girl he admitted to liking in the past, or maybe he commented a heart-eyes emoji on a selfie his old “friend” from high school posted, assuring you it was “totally innocent,” or maybe he religiously watches his cute coworker’s stories and “reacts” to them just as often.

While none of these instances are necessarily ones of unfaithfulness (at least, not as clear-cut as kissing someone else), you can’t ignore the twinge of jealousy you feel. Why would he be following that influencer and liking her pictures if not to ogle her? Why wouldn’t he have unfollowed his ex if he were truly over her? Why would he keep up the Snapchat streak with her? Why would he comment such a blatantly flirtatious emoji if his actual intention was to just be nice? Why would he care that his coworker went to a baseball game?

Behold: the many forms of micro-cheating, a new term that likely strikes fear into the hearts of many a young woman looking for a good, faithful man to spend her life with. Not only is there plain old cheating to be cautious of, but now there’s a micro version? Can’t we catch a break?

Micro-cheating is an internet-era term for small acts of betrayal.

“‘Micro-cheating,’ an internet-era term for small acts of betrayal, is the subject of an endless stream of content on platforms like TikTok and Instagram. Because so much of it happens online, couples are monitoring and investigating each other’s digital habits for signs of disloyalty,” explains The Washington Post. And monitor a man’s online habits, many a woman has done.

One way women have tried to combat this new worry? By hiring pretty girls on Instagram to flirtatiously message their boyfriend and report his responses back to her, as evidenced by tens of thousands of TikToks either exposing an unfaithful man’s replies or celebrating a faithful king. “If you think that your man is cheating on you … DM me on Instagram … I’ve been doing this for, like, a year and a half. I’ve saved a lot of y’all … boom, just like that you have reassurance or you can get rid of him and not take a man into the new year that’s not even your man,” promises a TikTok user. The demand for such “services” is high enough that TikTok users will dedicate an entire account to it.

Cheating Used To Encompass Less

In times past, cheating essentially meant one thing: getting into a physical relationship with someone who was not your partner. Whether it was a one-night occurrence or a full-blown romance, if a man kissed or was intimate with another woman, then he’d cheated, plain and simple. There were no “likes” to concern yourself with, no comments to decipher, no exes to worry about him following on Instagram.

A whole new world opened up with the rise of social media and the digital realm. MySpace’s “top 8” had users publicly ranking their friends. Becoming Facebook or Instagram “official” was soon a marker for a relationship being committed and serious, for all the online world to see. “Soft launches” became another way of quietly announcing a new romance. It’s no wonder that with these brand new ways of interacting with our interpersonal relationships, another way of being unfaithful has emerged.

Are We Just Being Insecure?

This development means women today are faced with new questions when it comes to what counts as cheating. Is it actually a form of unfaithfulness to like another girl’s bikini photo? Or to keep up with his ex’s stories? Or to stay in touch with a girl he used to carry a torch for? Or to leave comments that are a little too nice? Or…are we just being insecure, as we’re so often told?

“It’s not a big deal,” “I don’t even really look at what I’m liking,” “Why do you care so much? It’s not like I’ll ever meet her,” are just a few of the responses women will frequently hear when confronting their boyfriend or husband over liking another woman’s photos. But then, why does it feel like he’s being unfaithful when he interacts with other women online — even if he never has a physical relationship with them?

Women are more sensitive to a man offering another woman attention because this signals he might lose interest and abandon us one day.

“Women today are descendants of women who over thousands of generations have reacted with jealousy to men who sent signals that they were less invested in them. Evolutionary psychologists believe that women are especially sensitive to signs that the man is devoting time and attention to other women,” writes Science Daily regarding a Norwegian study of men and women’s different reactions to infidelity.

Women are more sensitive to the thought of a man offering another woman attention (to a degree that men might not immediately empathize with) because this signals that he might lose interest and abandon us (and any children) one day, leaving the woman in the precarious situation of having to provide for and raise her children by herself.

So, it’s not so much insecure as it is practical that she would be wary of and offended by a man so blatantly showing interest in another woman — even if nothing physical were ever to transpire with her specifically. It plants seeds that one day, under more unfortunate circumstances, might bloom into something more egregious.

Delineations Might Differ, but It’s Disrespectful Either Way

So…is it actually cheating? The answer might differ by case. It’s certainly not on the level of sleeping with someone else, but it’s still questionable behavior for a man who’s in a relationship — even more questionable if his intention is to cultivate a friendly relationship with another woman online.

Micro-cheating, encompassing the various ways in which men can non-physically interact with another woman, isn’t necessarily full-blown infidelity. To compare liking a girl’s picture with carrying out an affair, complete with secret meetups and lies about overnight work trips, would dilute the severity of such an act. One is hurtful, and shouldn’t have been done at all; the other is traumatic and will likely wreck a relationship beyond repair.

But micro-cheating is deeply disrespectful either way. It’s a brazen show of attraction to another woman to like a scantily clad picture. It’s thoughtless to continue following an old flame. It’s disloyal to comment something that could be interpreted as flirtatious. Especially given that it’s so simple not to do any of these things. What he should care about more than showing “support” on another girl’s picture is what it causes the women he supposedly loves to feel: disrespected, unvalued, and insulted.

There’s a big difference between flat-out cheating and engaging in behaviors that fall under the umbrella of “micro-cheating.” But with the online world changing the way everything else works in our lives, it only makes sense that it would also alter what is seen as acceptable behavior for a taken man, and what could be seen as adjacent to unfaithfulness.