The first time she saw him, Jessica* was sitting in a cafe a few blocks from her college campus. She was texting her boyfriend when the barista called her name and handed her a latte across the counter. He was attractive in an obvious way — blonde, California, surfer-type — and he smelled like coffee beans. The kind of guy you can’t help but notice, even when you’ve been in a relationship for over four years, like Jessica. He wasn’t the first guy who she’d talked to during her relationship and wouldn’t be the last. But, while talking to him, she almost got caught.

Jessica and her boyfriend Josh* started dating when she was 19. They grew up in the same small town in Massachusetts and dated long distance for four years while she went to college, and now again while she works towards her masters. While she’s at school he works back home as a plumber, saving up for the future. “Me and Josh have never had a fight,” she says. “It’s been five years, we’ve never fought. That’s just the kind of relationship we have.” Despite the hundreds of miles between them, jealousy isn’t really an issue; there has to be a certain level of trust when you live so far apart for that long. But distance can be lonely, and the separation makes it relatively easy to talk to anyone, anytime.

A few weeks later, Jessica ran into the barista at a bar.

“Do you know who I am?” he asked.

“No,” she said — but, of course, she did.

She gave him her number. It was just to see who’s out there — for fun — like all the other times. Jessica keeps the conversations secret even though it never goes past talking. “If you looked through my recent texts right now, you’d find at least two people’s numbers saved under different names,” she says. Her phone buzzed later that night and Jessica’s stomach dropped. She remembered meeting the barista years ago, in her hometown — through Josh. She deleted his number, thankful that she was almost unrecognizable without her old bangs, and even more so that she hadn’t taken it too far. It was the first time she thought Josh might find out that she talked to other men. “I have two separate lives,” she says. “I don’t mix the two worlds. There’s my life at home, with Josh, and I love him. And then there’s my life at school.” If you look at Jessica’s Instagram, there’s no photos of them together, no hints of their relationship. She says it’s partly because they don’t see each other often — but only partly. They celebrated their fifth anniversary on April 9 (but have an expiration date, Jessica says.)

On the scale of shitty relationship etiquette, Jessica’s series of mini flings may be pretty comparable to sharing a flirty inside joke with a co-worker, apparently. An internet trend sparked by Australian psychologist Melanie Schilling in January, “micro-cheating” gave us a new reason to panic over our relationships. Micro-cheating is basically anything that isn’t technically cheating, but isn’t exactly in the realm of good behavior, either. “You might be engaging in micro-cheating if you secretly connect with another person on social media, if you share private jokes, if you downplay the seriousness of your relationship to your partner or if you enter their name under a code in your phone,” Schilling told Daily Mail. But is her definition fair? It’s no doubt dishonest to lie about your relationship status. But what about smaller, more harmless things like having a slightly flirtatious friendship with your cute colleague, or checking in on a college ex once in a while — should those things be lumped with more serious offenses? According to Schilling’s definition, yes: micro-cheating is anything that takes your focus away from your relationship and puts it on somebody else.

But, there are lots of reasons why we keep secrets. “Sometimes people feel like they should hide something because of the potential ambiguity or room for misinterpretation,” says Brittany Jakubiak, a professor of psychology at Syracuse University who specializes in relationships. It’s not rare to find ourselves second guessing our words or actions, even if we’ve done nothing wrong. The definition of micro-cheating that’s trending doesn’t account enough for this context. “Cheating is a strong word,” says Dr. Marni Feuerman, psychotherapist and relationship expert in Boca Raton, Florida. “It implies betrayal and unfaithfulness.” Labeling a wide range of actions as “micro-cheating” is stigmatizing and unnecessarily strains a couple’s trust.

If at this point you’re starting to think nervously about your own relationship, you’re not alone; most people who’ve dated have micro-cheated to some capacity. “The term ‘micro-cheating’ is ultimately unhelpful,” says sex and relationship writer Maria Del Russo. “It gives people who may seek to manipulate their partners the ammunition to do so.” It would be unrealistic to expect every committed individual to cut off all communication with everyone else besides their boyfriend or girlfriend, blood relatives, and pets. Does that mean we’re all bad people, destined to a lifetime of bad dating karma? Not at all — it just makes us human.

Micro-cheating is not always clear, as in Jessica’s case. Kira* and her boyfriend Brian* are the kind of couple that leaves even the happiest couples a little jealous (and the rest of us a little nauseous.) It’s hard to miss her when she walks into a room, wearing bright necklaces and delicate gold hoops — two in her ears and one through her left nostril. Her style is reflective of her personality: unapologetic, while he is sweet. She smiles when she says Brian’s name, folding her hands after taping closed a cardboard box labeled “picture frames” in scribbled sharpie. This summer, their fourth together, Kira and Brandon are moving to South Carolina from New York.

A few months back, Kira reconnected with an old fling. They texted and talked on the phone occasionally. The old spark wasn’t completely gone. “It was half habit, and half just a lack of self control, but it didn’t make me love Brian any less,” she says. “It was about the attention, even though I knew it was mostly bullshit.” Although she never lied about her relationship status, she didn’t bring it up to her ex often — or ever. Most of their conversations were about her photography, until they met to catch up over a drink. In person, there was no denying that he wanted more than friendship, so Kira left. “When I saw him, I instantly knew I wasn’t attracted to him anymore. I didn’t want to be with him at all,” she says. “Meeting up with him was honestly amazing, because otherwise I’d always have wondered.” She never told Brian.

Arguably, this type of closure seems like a healthy way to establish what you want in a partner and who you want to be with. It’s okay to be curious as long as you respect your current relationship. If you feel like you have something to hide, ask yourself why. Is the conversation simply about closure, or is it perhaps the beginning of something more? Experiences like Kira’s are common among women in their mid-twenties as they figure out what they want from a relationship. Labeling her actions as micro-cheating without considering her mindset or context undermines the value of closure and discourages other women from seeking it.

But, where do we draw the line? Dr. Martin Graff, a psychologist at the University of South Wales, recently researched what makes online interactions seem like cheating. Graff found that the later in the day you send a text, the more likely it will come off as flirtatious — think booty calls: “hey” means something entirely different at 1:45 a.m. than at lunch time. What you talk about also matters. The deeper the conversation, the more likely that one (or both) of you is interested in more than friendship. Whether you tell your partner about the interaction should also play a role in deciding if you should back off (or block someone’s number.) But Graff’s research is only based on how people perceive a conversation, not the true intention behind it. Whether or not you’ll cheat could have nothing to do with your texting style at all. Research has found endless possible factors (in 2017, NPR found that men are most likely to cheat when they’re “nine-enders,” 29, 39, 49, etc., for example.)

Noticing other people is natural. According to psychologist and sex therapist Dr. Justin Lehmiller, people are turned on by newness. This could be why it makes your day when a cute cashier smiles at you or why you fantasized about the hot guy from the subway when you were with your boyfriend last night. Both of these things take your focus away from your relationship in a big way but psychologists say, in this case, it’s okay. In fact, 98% of us fantasize about people other than our partners, says sex and relationship expert Dr. Tammy Nelson. Why is this okay when less intimate interactions are considered micro-cheating? There’s really no answer; it’s equally ambiguous. “Just because someone is fantasizing, even about the same person repeatedly, it doesn’t mean they’re necessarily going to cheat with that person,” says Dr. Lehmiller. When it comes to setting boundaries, every couple is different. Research shows that people are all over the board when it comes to what they think of as infidelity. “To keep a relationship strong, you are going to want to pay attention to your partner’s feelings, even if they don’t entirely make sense to you,” says Dr. Feuerman. People are Google-ing open relationships and polygamy more now than ever. Micro-cheating isn’t what couples should be worried about in a world of monogam-ish relationships because, let’s face it, we’d all be a little guilty of something if you looked hard enough.

The complicated part is that our definitions of what’s “harmless” don’t always match up. Kira knows that Brian would be mad if he found out, despite her intentions, but she thinks it’s not a fight worth having. “It’s like the salt and pepper shakers at a restaurant,” she says. “If I take one, I’m technically stealing. But it would be a bigger, unnecessary issue for that restaurant to call the police and start an investigation — for what? Just salt.” It seems okay; we all have that one-who-got-away with whom we honestly believe we can be just friends, right? But context isn’t a get out of jail free card. Communication is more important: “you’re not the only one in the relationship, so your justifications aren’t the only thing to take into consideration,” says Del Russo. Without communication, little things often spiral.

Six months ago, Riley* and Malcolm* shared everything — phone passwords, social accounts, search histories. But Riley found herself getting angry over things that were probably harmless. (This is fair; NPR found that more than half of men and women consider flirty texts alone to be cheating.) The transparency did more harm than good, so they decided to stay off each other’s devices. Things got better, at first. Then, Malcolm began to hide his phone notifications and never mentioned her on social media. “He was touchy about me posting a picture in his sweatshirt once, saying he didn’t want his exes to be mad and cause problems,” says Riley. “I didn’t understand why it was such a big deal.” Until she did. A few months later, Malcolm’s ex-girlfriend messaged Riley to say she was sleeping with Malcolm, and had thought he and Riley had broken up. Malcolm had even gone as far as hiding all of Riley’s belongings while she took a weekend trip to cover his tracks.

Looking back, the small signs were there, Riley says. One night together in their apartment, Malcolm got up from the couch to grab a beer and left his phone on the coffee table. He froze while rounding the counter top and came back for his phone before walking to the fridge — a 15-step round trip.

“Micro-cheating behaviors in a particular context might be harmless, but they can be warning signs in another,” says Graff. And he’s right, but Malcolm’s not-so-micro cheating shouldn’t be grouped with smaller “micro-cheating” behaviors. Doing so effectively downplays his BS. That’s the dangerous part about the micro-cheating trend: there isn’t one quick box to check that applies to all relationships. And there doesn’t need to be, which is what makes micro-cheating so unhelpful. You know if you’re doing something wrong because you just know. “It feels different,” says Dr. Nelson, “because it crosses a line from a joke with a friend or a beer with a coworker and tiptoes into an area where you are receiving or giving attention that is feeding your cheating ego.” Your cheating ego is that small part of you that craves attention and likes to flirt just because it’s forbidden, Nelson describes.

If you’ve micro-cheated — which most of us have — it doesn’t mean your relationship is doomed, or even that you should come clean about every little white lie you’ve told. Use it to reflect and move forward. Maybe you got the closure you needed and can leave it in the past, but it’s still important to recognize that your partner may see the situation differently. Or, maybe you do want to explore who’s out there. And that’s perfectly fine, but consider taking a break from your committed FB-status. The most important thing is to respect both yourself and your partner, even if that means walking away. Don’t let trends like “micro-cheating” dictate your boundaries; you know yourself, and your relationship, best.

*Name has been changed at the request of the source.

To Snoop or Not to Snoop?

Because it’s just *so* tempting.

We’ve all been there: it’s Thursday night and you and your boyfriend are two hours deep in a Netflix binge-sesh. He gets up to refill the popcorn bowl and you’re left alone on the couch, locked in a staring contest with his phone. “DON’T DO IT,” your moral compass screams. But, your curiosity wins you over — a quick peek can’t hurt. Or can it?

Finding out who your partner has been talking to is pretty easy. Access isn’t an issue; the question is whether or not you should act on your ability to find out, well, essentially anything. Is falling down the rabbit hole of old text messages and Instagram likes really worth it? Here’s your guide to answering the age-old question: to snoop or not to snoop?

Is it wrong?

Even the most secure among us get jealous. It’s human nature to be suspicious, and for good reason: a 2013 DailyMail survey found that nearly half the people who find out their partner is cheating do so by snooping through their phone — yikes. Although it gets a bad rap, looking through your partner’s phone may actually be adaptive, according to Dr. Martin Graff, who has researched micro-cheating. “We want to stop our partners from cheating before they cheat,” he says, “and we can do that by monitoring these little behaviors.”

Does it do more harm than good?

Most of the time, yes. A 2012 College Student Journal study found that, typically, couples who snooped said their relationships got worse, not better. But whether or not you should give in to the temptation really depends on your relationship. In a perfect world, we’d all have no problem sharing phone passwords and search histories; however, we all have things we’d rather keep to ourselves — even if we don’t have much to hide. Maybe you’re worried that messages will be misinterpreted and could start a fight. Or, maybe you just don’t want the invasion of privacy. And that’s okay. The most important thing is to talk about boundaries. Define what you and your partner are comfortable with and what you aren’t. Maybe you decide that liking an ex’s Instagram picture of their new dog is fine, but FaceTiming her family for Sunday night dinner is definitely not. By making things clear, you may feel less compelled to snoop at all. But, if you decide you have no other option, proceed with caution and don’t jump to conclusions. You know what they say about assuming…