It can be hard to know what counts as flirting, let alone when flirting crosses the line into cheating territory. For example, recently, a friend told me about a text she’d seen from her boyfriend to his coworker. “Your haircut looks hot,” it said. Upset, she asked him what he’d meant. “Nothing,” he shrugged. “I was just giving her a compliment.” My friend tried to brush it off, but the bad feeling lingered. They broke up a few weeks later. “The text wasn’t the only reason, but it didn’t help. I couldn’t get past the idea that he was flirting behind my back. I lost trust,” she says.
Of course, paying someone a compliment isn’t always inherently flirtatious. For my friend, it came down to the choice of words. “If he’d said her haircut looked ‘nice,’ maybe I wouldn’t have cared as much,” she admits. “But ‘hot’ seemed sexual. I already felt uncomfortable with their relationship—she texted him a lot. Seeing his word choice confirmed my fears: he definitely wasn’t discouraging her.”
Whether real or perceived, flirting can sow seeds of doubt in a relationship—or, as in my friend’s case, water seeds that had already started to sprout. “It can hurt a relationship, especially if it makes one partner feel insecure or disrespected,” confirms licensed mental health counselor Rachel Marmor. “Over time, this can really damage emotional closeness.”
Flirting or just friendly?
Flirting isn’t always easy to detect, even when you’re on the receiving end. By its very nature, it’s open to interpretation. A gesture, a smile, or an emoji could all be used to accentuate a point—or hint at the desire for something more. “The subtlety is actually what makes flirting fun and exciting,” notes psychotherapist Suzette Bray.
The distinction between friendly and flirty, then, comes down to intention. “Being friendly is all about showing kindness, being warm, and genuinely caring for someone,” explains psychologist Dr. Shaakira Haywood Stewart. “Flirting, on the other hand, is kindness wrapped in attraction or desire. It has a different energy.”
A good rule of thumb: Flirting tends to include behaviors or words that suggest attraction, interest, or an invitation for attention. “It’s often playful or teasing, with a sprinkle of sexual tension,” explains Bray.
Innocent flirting
All that makes sense, but it can also be challenging to know someone’s true intent; the other person may not be fully aware of it themselves. My friend with the coworker-texting boyfriend, for example, suspects he may have craved attention: “Looking back, he always needed a lot of validation; no amount was ever enough,” she says. “I don’t think he realized how a lot of his behavior came across.”