Just how much boyfriend does she have?

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I’m not arguing for it, for the record. My point is that this is something that’s going on that ND’s need to at least be aware of. So you can take it either as advice or as a warning. Either way, don’t let the phenomenon of a partner jumping out of one relationship immediately into another catch you off guard. If you find yourself interested in dating someone IAR and want the opportunity to date that person when the relationship ends, you can make yourself available and set things up so that you are more likely the one she (or he) jumps to. That doesn’t mean that you ARE the next in line, of course, but at least you’re not stuck hanging on the outside.

Many ND’s might not do it, but I think this stems from a simplistic view of the world that follows a straightforward logic. We’re not the problem. Human nature is the problem, and we too often end up on the losing side. You don’t HAVE to cheat if you don’t want to. But you do have to face the reality that people do cheat and manipulate the system.

So the questions are: How commonplace is the behavior? Is it actually the rule in spite of being taught that it is wrong? Is it actually wrong?

And what is actually meant by cheating? I can’t help but feel attraction for women even though I wouldn’t physically cheat on my wife in a million years. Have I EVER cheated on a gf? Quite a few times. So I distinguish between cheating that I can’t help, emotional, instinctive, internal, and cheating that manifests in physical action. Physical cheating, financial cheating, and the like are the only ones that matter, while merely being aroused by a random girl I’ll never meet does not.

To participate in another’s cheating, well...I think that doesn’t sit well with ND’s because we intrinsically feel it could too easily happen to us. We feel the next lover that gets “stolen” was our lover. But if forming relationships WHILE IN a relationship is the status quo, even if physical cheating never happens, then that’s a real game-changer isn’t it?

So what is cheating? Is having someone waiting in the background a form of cheating?

I'm not 100% opposed to any tactics, and certainly not on the basis of "this looks like this or that." What I'm opposed to is viewing and treating women as objects and nothing more than something to be used for male pleasure. I'm about relationships, not ONS.

Whether you are a PUA and you don't really care about women or you really are seeking an authentic relationship with a woman, I think it's worth considering that PUA's aren't the only ones playing these games. Women are in on it and complicit with it. If a woman isn't into that, you're not going to get her, anyway. Either way, you have a pretty good justification for playing games as long as you are aware that the other side knows what you're up to. If they like you, they go home with you. That's all you need to know.

Not really relevant to where I was going with this, though. I had in mind a specific situation in which there was already an established relationship, even if it was just a friendship. If girls are jumping right out of one relationship into another, I want to know how to be the guy she jumps to, rather than always getting passed over because there's always some other guy lurking around and "pestering" her. How do you get to be THAT guy, instead of the one who always gets rejected because the second she breaks up with one guy, she "needs time to herself," and a week later she's already with someone else.

How do you turn that around?

I've become more interested in a more ethical question, though. Does the old standard definition of "cheating" still apply here, or is it time to reconsider what we think of as cheating? It's looking to me more and more that keeping someone on the side, though not NECESSARILY what we typically think of as cheating, is pretty standard practice. It's probably not a good idea to ask because you probably don't really want to know the answer. But as you move forward in the relationship as an exclusive couple, you probably don't want to overly complicate things by keeping potential new flames, or even old ones, in your life.