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"A few weeks ago, an article about cheating came that really caught my interest. Apparently, ashleymadison.com (a site that hooks up married or involved people, so that they can have an affair) sees its subscription rates triple the day after Father&amp;#39;s day, and increase by a factor of 10 the day after Mother&amp;#39;s day. This makes me think that 1) there are real repercussions for a bad Mother&amp;#39;s day gift from husbands and 2) that people will use certain contexts to validate cheating. So I want to ask: Is it ever OK to cheat? And if so, when?\nPinterestFacebookTo be clear, I&amp;#39;m not asserting that the following situations provide morally sound grounds for cheating, just positing them as hypothetical. Feel free to agree or disagree in the comments.\n1) He Cheated on You\nAhhh, the revenge f*ck. I can dig it (I&amp;#39;m a middle child; I think we have an ingrained sense of tit-for-tat justice). It won&amp;#39;t solve anything, but there&amp;#39;s a weird moral gray zone (actually, it&amp;#39;s sexier than gray, more like a moral red zone), where I can see this making you feel better about what he did to you. If I were in this situation (where she cheated on me and I was sleeping with someone else), I would have to ask: Am I doing this for revenge or just to level the playing field? Also, would I do it with someone I knew she hated or someone I had always wanted to sleep with? (They might have a say in this as well; I don&amp;#39;t think I could just walk up to Cameron Diaz and say &amp;quot;Um, my girlfriend cheated on me\u2026.so I&amp;#39;ve decided we should get naked,&amp;quot; and have her be down with it.)\n__\n\nCelebrities__\n\nSpeaking of celebrities, how mad could she be if Jennifer Aniston and I just happened to be at the same party and ended up becoming Friends in a hot tub together? This is a tough one. Most couples have lists. Miss Canada had John Mayer on hers. I had Kristen Stewart on mine. But how long does the list get to be? And how famous counts as famous? Do they have to have billing in their films (&amp;quot;he was an extra, that doesn&amp;#39;t count&amp;#8212;you cheated!), or if they&amp;#39;re a TV star does their show have to have been renewed for at least three seasons? Do reality stars count? I don&amp;#39;t think they should (Shallon&amp;#8212;any thoughts here?). And finally, how often can we update said list? I think once a year is fair. But I get to pick the date.\n3)  When He&amp;#39;ll Never Find Out\nThis one is a trick! You know why? It doesn&amp;#39;t matter if he ever finds out because you&amp;#39;ll know. But let&amp;#39;s not be heroic here. We all live with secrets. Maybe you made a drunken mistake one night (or not such a mistake) and telling him would ruin everything and not telling him means you only have to live with this itty, bitty lie. What then? I&amp;#39;d say it&amp;#39;s up to you. We live in the real world where real relationships take tons of work, and although they should ideally be based on complete trust and honesty, I can understand someone not wanting to undo all of that because of one little moment of penetration, or even less. Not saying I would not feel totally betrayed, just saying I might also understand (if I ever found out).\n4)  Flirting\u2026and a Little More\nBut what if it&amp;#39;s just a kiss? Or maybe just a sniff. Maybe there was just oral. What then? Is flirting cheating? Can&amp;#39;t a girl go have fun at a bar and then go home to her man? Aren&amp;#39;t I the one who is always saying &amp;quot;go out and be hungry, but eat at home.&amp;quot; How hungry should we be? I don&amp;#39;t know the answer here, and I don&amp;#39;t think there is one answer. Every relationship is different, and the boundaries of how intimate you are allowed to be with others differs from couple to couple. I know my friends Jacob and Marnie, who are married, are allowed to flirt with others because they like to bring additional partners into their sexual activity. I know other people who are literally not allowed to even talk to other girls when they&amp;#39;re out together. Every couple is different.\n5)  Different Country, Different City, Different Area Code\nGeography was never my favorite subject. I hated it (sorry Father Hill, not your fault). The road is a lonely place, that&amp;#39;s why God invented truck stops, right? Ew. Bad metaphor. What I mean is that sometimes fun things happen in faraway places, and sometimes they follow you home, and sometimes they don&amp;#39;t (what happens at the Wichita Hilton stays at the Wichita Hilton, right?). Isn&amp;#39;t part of traveling experiencing other people as well as the places we go?\n6)  It&amp;#39;s a Game\nIt&amp;#39;s your first week of college. You&amp;#39;re playing truth or dare. If your girlfriend were there, and not 3000 miles away at UCLA she would probably be playing with you. You&amp;#39;re dared to make out with the cute girl who lives in the next dorm over. How can that be cheating? Thinking about this, I&amp;#39;m tempted to dedicate an entire category to just &amp;quot;college.&amp;quot; I feel like there could be one long free pass for the entire time spent at college, or at least one freebie per relationship (same goes for press junkets, trade shows, and work retreats\u2026.though not bachelor parties, because that&amp;#39;s just clich\uFFFD).\nThere are a lot of &amp;quot;ifs&amp;quot; here, and a lot of jokes, and I think it&amp;#39;s clear that when it comes to cheating, the veracity and severity of the act is in the eye of the beholder. Here&amp;#39;s a good rule to live by though, something I think I can safely conclude with: If you wouldn&amp;#39;t tell him/her, it&amp;#39;s probably cheating.\nIs cheating ever OK? What situation do you think it might be?\n__\nHave a question for Single John? Submit it here.__\nMore on Relationships at Glamour.com__\nDo You Throw Away Old Photos of Your Ex-Boyfriends?\nRekindling the Romance: 9 Secrets to Keeping the Spark in Your Relationship&amp;#8212;Even When You Live Together\nWhat Men Say About You When You&amp;#39;re Not Around\n__More Ways to Get Glamour\nVisit Shopglamour.com for cute stuff starting at just $10!\nEnter the latest Glamour sweepstakes!\nFollow us on Twitter!\nAdd us to your iGoogle homepage.\nPhoto: Thinkstock"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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