Why are so many people cheating on their spouses on facebook, etc. and don't consider it a form of cheating?

[Bill D]

My thoughts are, as I have said to a gew people on Yahoo Answers and elsewhere, that people have become reliant on Facebook, Twitter, text messaging, and other (anti)social networking sites to do their conversing. Many people are so dependent on it that they have almost forgotten how to interact with others in the real world, face to face. This is clearly evident from the number of partnerships and marriages that result from "online" interaction, whether it be dating sites or social networking, but what we aren't being shown amongst the percentages is how many of those pertnerships last more than a year.

It has become much easier over the last 4 or 5 years to communicate through facebook because so many people these days have fancy phones with Internet connection on which they can install all these applications. A lot of people (men and women) actually forget that they are crossing over the line of fidelity in a relationship when they start flirting on facebook, etc. They can tell little white lies to make themselves more macho or sexy. It is no less blatant than a married man going out with the guys and spending the night in a club chatting up a women. Whether or not he actually sleeps with her is beside the point, he is still cheating on his partner.

One of the problems with facebook is that it will pop up "Do You Know ...." and often show people who were at the same school, by virtue of the fact that people mention this in their profile, or their friends have mentioned it. I'm pretty sure that there are occasions where someone that the guy fancied when he was at school pops up as a suggested friend. There's nothing wrong with a guy having online female friends, but sometimes before they know it they are exchanging personal details and the flame that never transpired whilst at school is suddenly possible.

Although facebook does have it's very legitimate uses, I hate facebook. Although I don't think it has necessarily changed people any more than would have been the case (because if facebook didn't exist, another site would have started), but it has made it very easy to cheat on partners.

You just have to read that statement you quoted to realise that some people these days equate having someone as a facebook friend to "being with them", and others (mostly men I would guess) can dismiss flirting and sexy talk over facebook as "we're just friends and were having a laugh". These kinds of opposing viewpoints, changeable dependent on the situation, are what make facebook dangerous to some relationships.

If you want my advice, just ditch him. If he can't tell the difference between being faithful and getting it on with someone on facebook, then it is possible he will mix up the two principles further on down the line in the real world.