If you’re a follower of the blog, you remember how a few months ago I wrote about online cheating. It was after an unfortunate event that occurred between myself and the person I was dating, who unbeknown to me, had an online “affair” with his female friend.
Heartbroken as I was, it actually made me wonder how easily it all happened, all without my knowledge! It almost seems like cheating has become much easier now that we have access to the internet and each other through social media.
So that had me putting on my investigative hat: how easy is it to cheat online?
Well…. apparently, very! Follow me through the many easy ways people can cheat online.
Affair dating sites
There are regular, well-known dating sites like okCupid, jDate, Match.com and so on. But did you know that there are dating sites completely focused on people looking to have an affair? I kid you not!
When you take a look at sites like The Affair Site, it’s reserved only for members who want to have secret affairs. Their slogan says it all: “Making it easy to have an affair…” The dating site will match members with people in their area – either married people who are also looking to have an affair or people who are not necessarily in a relationship, but like the thrill of being part of the affair.
Imagine… back in the day, it took work, time and dedication to have an affair. Now, all it takes is joining a dating site and you can see an entire list of people who are openly looking for the same thing! Apparently, it works well – this journalist managed to set up dates with 3 married men within two days of joining an affair site.
Social networks connect
Social networks like Facebook are generally a great avenue to meet people. You can catch up with exes, old friends & classmates, people you had a crush on, or start up conversations and make friends in groups.
Plenty of affairs and relationships start up on Facebook… According to the Daily Mail, at least one in five divorces now involves Facebook. As a matter of fact, there is a spike in the number of cases that use social media as evidence of cheating. Flirty messages and photographs are being cited as proof of infidelity. Ironically, a lot of these stem from social media users who get back in touch with old flames.
The reality is that Facebook allows us to connect with more people than we usually speak to on a regular day… we can find people with the same interests, look through pictures and evaluate attractiveness, and flirt – all behind a password-protected profile.
Unconventional forums
No longer can we take a look at credit card bills or phone transcripts to catch a cheating partner. Today’s unconventional forums like Skype, webcams, social media and gaming devices make it a lot easier to hide evidence of an affair. Chats can be deleted, webcams are not recording and payments can be made through Paypal, under a secure password.
There are apps like Snapchat which are constantly used for sexting and affairs because prior texts and images are deleted once viewed. And, worse, there are apps that are made specifically with affairs in mind: by hiding messages, phone calls and contact numbers,
Guides for the lost
Finally, anyone looking for ways to cheat or be smart about keeping their affair an undiscovered secret can find guides and forums online. A short Google search led me to a post which goes through step by step instructions on how you can have an affair online. The tips start with how to create a ‘persona’ to separate your marriage from your affair from a psychological standpoint to how long to keep the affair going and where you can find interested partners. With so much access to knowledge, even those who aren’t sure how to go about it can find out!
I’m curious to know your thoughts – have you ever thought about how easy it is for people to have affairs online? Were you aware of the accessibility of options available to them? Share below and keep it nice, please!
*Images courtesy of marin & chrisroll at freedigitalphotos.net
I seen people have affairs via social media and I’ve seen many relationships go south because of social media. Social Media is not always a good thing.
There are a lot of sites out there that focus on cheating and alternative lifestyles like poly relationships.
Holy cow! My mouth is hanging open! I had no idea!
That is horrible. So sad people do this and companies make it easier for them.
Seems like the Internet has made it easier to date, but also easier to cheat. I’m sorry you had to go through that.
Sorry you had to go through such a horrible time! This is one of the reasons my husband and I try to be extra careful when interacting with others online.
Sorry you had to deal with that! 🙁
Sadly we had a family member just get caught with that. Had been going on for months and no one knew. Seems to easy for some to cheat.
Wow, affair dating sites. What’a happening here? Sadly, this has happened, not to me and my husband but to some family members. It’s so easy.
I am sorry about what happened to you! It is very simple to have an affair with modern technology! A partner could have contact with someone and you’d just never know! 🙁
Unfortunately, affairs are going to be a side effect of any social media outlet. It’s just too easy to connect to people. What turns my stomach is that people have actually made sites for the express purpose of doing this. How sickening. I am so sorry for what happened to you. But you know something? The fact that he would ever do that means you weren’t with the right guy anyway. Whatever your problems are, cheating is not the answer. Period.
It’s so sad that people do such horrible things to each other. Sad.
Cheating is just about the most horrible thing one person can do to another. The fact that they have website devoted to it makes me want to vomit.
My best friend in college cheated online, eventually in real life, and then her marriage ended because of it. It was so sad!
It makes me sad that there are so many new ways to cheat now. And that there are people who will use them.
I think I heard about some of those affair websites on a tv special. I can’t believe that someone would create a website dedicated to helping people cheat.
If I check my spam, I see all sorts of ads about things like this. It really makes me ill.
I would rather not think about it. It makes me really sad!
I honestly could not believe it when I first heard of the affair matching sites. The Internet definitely makes it so easy to cheat on your partner.
Just reading this now I’m a victim of this Internet cheating. My boyfriend and I moved in together after only dating for 3 months I thought things were great til we moved in and I found evidence of those websites in the history of our Internet pages and he was talking to an old fling on Facebook. It’s been a horrible road I’ve been on for the last 10 months I’m stuck in it since the house is in both our names. No trust on my end with him and there’s no effection from him anymore. I feel so hurt and alone and very sad every single day. Be care
ful