Is Facebook Causing Us To Cheat?
By Elisabeth LaMotte. Posted on .
In most relationships, it seems that one partner Facebooks and the other doesn't. Or, if both partners are on Facebook, one has hundreds of friends and spends a good deal of time Facebooking, while the other never gets around to changing their bald, alien-head profile image. One gets hooked; the other doesn't. Watch: Facebook Manners And You
Facebook relationship troubles start out innocently. The Facebooker may join for professional reasons, or because they have received numerous invitations from friends. Before long, however, couples are fighting about who has more ex-lovers as "friends," who friended whom ("I forget" being the most common answer to this all-important question), and why people mention certain tidbits on their status updates that they don't bother to mention to their partner.
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What makes Facebook appealing is also what makes it dangerous from an infidelity standpoint: it connects you to those you otherwise wouldn't meet or renew friendships with, it involves a degree of distance and it's easy. Chatting via Facebook is so much more innocent than, say, calling up the cute new guy at the office or, for that matter, an ex-lover—two of the most common cheating partners. Innocent interaction can quickly evolve into a state of emotional distraction (i.e., simply too much time and energy going to someone outside of your romantic relationship) or into near-infidelity, such as full-on flirtations or emotional affairs. Is Our Facebook Romance Real?
How much emotional energy is going into our cyber relationships? One of my clients—a recently single entrepreneur and self-proclaimed "recovering Facebook junkie"—said it best:
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"Facebooking is great for those who are never, ever, under any circumstances, going to cheat on their partner. It's also great for cheaters who are going to cheat either way—Facebook just makes it easier. Facebook represents a serious problem for folks like me—the teeterers. By that I mean those of us who are not 100 percent likely to cheat, but who might, unintentionally, teeter on fidelity's edge. Facebook is to teeterers what a bar is to recovering alcoholics. Don't go there!"
