Advice

On drunken cuddling

My best friend is a lesbian. I’m a bisexual female in a heterosexual relationship. I got really drunk the other night with my best friend and we cuddled together in our underwear. There was this strange moment where she kind of held my hand. I’ve cuddled with other friends before so I’m trying to validate myself with that. Is this cheating?

 

It’s not for me to say whether it was cheating. That’s up to you and your romantic partners to decide. You’re the ones who should define the terms of your relationship.

Obviously, your drunken cuddling was in what you consider to be a grey area, and somewhere in all that grey, there is a line that you can’t quite see. The problem with not being able to see it is that you can’t know whether you crossed it.

I’m willing to bet that if you two had swapped any fluids, you probably would have been sure that it was cheating. Instead, there was a strange moment of hand holding. It was intimate, and it was loving, but she’s also your best friend. You can be intimate and loving with your best friend without it being sexual or romantic, regardless of either of your sexual orientations.

Was it sexual or romantic, though? Can you say for sure? And even if it was, would your boyfriend consider that infidelity? Again, there’s so much grey area.

Perhaps you should talk to your boyfriend about it. Find out how he feels. Hell, just telling your story might help firm up your own thoughts about how you feel yourself. This is one of those times where a healthy, open, and mature conversation could go a long way in strengthening your relationship.

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26 thoughts on “On drunken cuddling

  1. thorn says:

    I hope for you all that your friend isn’t catching feelings. I’ve been the gay best friend in love with the hypotenuse. Just be careful.

  2. JC says:

    I am sure there is more than one way to look at it, but my question would be why were they in their underwear? Maybe it was scorching hot, or they had been trying on clothes, or to be more comfortable watching a movie. However, if they got down to skivvies because there was a sexual component to their interaction, then it would be infidelity on some level, at least in my mind. Everything else that is described seems normal enough, and consistent with her past interactions with friends, and hand holding doesn’t make it cheating. Whether it was cheating or not really depends on the motivation for taking off their clothes.

    • Giuliana says:

      girl friends hang out in their underwear. it is more comfortable than hanging out in clothes, and more socially acceptable than being naked.

      • Nina says:

        Now that depends on the girl. I don’t hang out in my underwear and I don’t want to see my friend’s underwear.

      • JC says:

        My response left open that possibility. It’s not abnormal for girlfriends to be hanging out in underpants. However, do they always do this? Was this the first hanging out in underpants episode? What prompted the removal of other clothing?

        My only point was that the answers to these questions matter in deciding whether cheating happened or not. I wasn’t making any judgment about what it means in general for two women to hang out together in their underwear.

    • hm says:

      My friends and I used to ritualistically take off our pants when we all hung out in our little hang group. Dudes and ladies. No weirdness and no pants. The only complication was having to put them back on to smoke cigarettes.

  3. sheila says:

    “Oh, Bambi. You feel guilty because you consider cuddling to be an act of intimacy, and so it feels like cheating when you do it drunkenly with someone other than your partner.

    Good for you for being all adorable and having a conscience about the whole thing, but remember that innocence is lost in inches.”

    I have to say, Coquette, I’m glad you finally grew the fuck up and moved away from this conceited bullshit you spouted in 2010. You were trying a little too hard back then.

  4. A says:

    Several thoughts on this :
    1) if you find yourself asking if it’s cheating treat it like cheating.
    2) If you believe the knowledge would hurt your partner, you feel guilty and won’t do it again, and you don’t want to change the status of your relationship, don’t tell your partner.
    3) Drunk cuddling can quickly devolve into drunk sex marathon, even if you really didn’t mean to. Please don’t ask me why I know this.
    4) does the BF have a lady boner for the OP or not ? Even if she’s trying to hide it, even if having a conversation doesn’t give you an answer, follow your instincts and take action before it’s too late. The fallout can be really hard when it comes out in the middle of Pride and she starts puking on the pavement when you tell her the feelings aren’t mutual.

  5. hm says:

    I feel like cuddling is an act of intimacy that revolves around an emotional comfort between two people, whether romantic or not. If it feels like betrayal, it’s probably that there’s a sense of dishonesty in it, and with that go with Coke Talk in opening up about it.

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