what constitutes cheating?

last night i spent the night with toxic ex.

he's up north and i'm in the big smoke and it was all via msn/text but i still feel bad. nothing remotely untoward happened, but the fact remains that i was up until the small hours talking to someone i'm not talking to.

i have a very overactive conscience as i don't think i should be feeling bad: i don't know whether me and mr eligible are officially an item yet*, and the only potentially flirty messages came entirely from toxic ex.

i didn't really know what to do, as mentioned before toxic ex rarely talks to me so i was caught all unawares. it began completely innocently, all about work, holiday's, houses etc etc ad naseum. as the night drew on and (i think) he got a little drunk he started referring more and more to our past (which if we are to be friends i need to pretend never happened) and dropping in the odd "a guy can reminisce/dream can't he" type comment. i couldn't work out how to respond, i didn't want to tell him to stop it for fear he'd see me a prude and go to bed, but at the same time i didn't want to encourage him as i think i am with someone. in the end i fell back on the time-honoured technique of 'sticking my head in the sand'. i ignored all such insinuations and carried on as if he were talking about the weather.

eventually i said i was tired and was turning my computer off. that should have been the end of it, but 20 minutes later i got a text saying "don't go to sleep, i'm bored, entertain me". this is the point i should have stopped, i should have switched my phone off and gone to sleep. and i don't really know why i didn't.

like i said, nothing happened at all, it was all just chat. but i know what was behind the chat. i think it all comes down to treating others as you would like to them to treat you. i didn't do anything that would constitute cheating, but i also wouldn't be happy if mr eligible behaved as i have so i think i need to watch myself.


* he has however sent me a bunch of flowers the size of a small car, i was so surprised i nearly fell over. sad as i may be i have never been sent flowers before. toxic ex bought me one, once, and that was only because i told him to.