Are You Guilty of Micro-Infidelity?

You may not have heard the term before, but you’ve most likely experienced it in your life or know somebody who’s experienced it: “Micro-Infidelity,” or cheating on social media. That suspicious “like”? That comment made on your significant other’s wall? Are they evidence of blooming behind-your-back romance, or are they just evidence of your paranoia? At any rate, social networking has radically changed our way of relating, socializing and mating. So how do we integrate this new human experience with our lives and relationships?

The Frisky reports:

As I’ve watched the Weinergate scandal unfold over the past few days, I’ve related to the particulars in a discomforting way. Six months, I also found myself with a partner who flirted with a woman (at least, one woman that I know of) over the Internet. The unfaithfulness on my ex-boyfriend’s part — or his micro-infidelity, as I’ve come to think of it — is an indubitable reason why our relationship tanked. Although Rep. Anthony Weiner’s transgressions over Facebook and Twitter far exceed the ways my ex-boyfriend violated my trust, I nevertheless feel some woman-to-woman solidarity with Weiner’s wife, State Department aide Huma Abedin. She, too, is likely wondering where on the relativity scale — from Arnold Schwarzenegger’s hidden love child(ren) to dick pic tweets — she should classify the way her partner was unfaithful to her.

I really didn’t see it coming. That’s what was saddest about my story. In his press conference yesterday, Rep. Weiner said this his wife was aware he’d been flirting with women over Facebook and Twitter before they married, but he had lied to Abedin about flirtations he’d had after they’d wed. She must have been dismayed, to say the least, but not entirely surprised. When my ex-boyfriend was caught carrying on with a woman he met over Tumblr, I was utterly shocked.

What do you think—how vigilant do we need to be about social media and cheating?