Heterosexual Couples Declare Owning Opposite Sex Pets “Cheating”

In a world becoming characterized by surveillance, insecurity about your partner’s activity has become engrained in the dating lives of young people. In response to the growing fear of infidelity, social media has coined many terms: micro-cheating, the 3-month rule, sidewalk rule, hypergamy, green line test, and many more. A recent AP poll regarding Gen Z dating found that 86% of heterosexual daters consider owning a pet of the opposite sex cheating. 

“It’s like she’s giving some other guy all of her attention. Is it because of his stronger jaw and longer tongue?” asked Richard Montana, a college student going through troubling times with his girlfriend. “It’s a rule for us now that he can’t come out of the room unless I’m also there, and she can’t take him on walks.” Since Montana’s intervention, Sparky spends a lot more time laying next to the windowsill, silently. 

Miranda Powell, a junior marketing student, has similar insecurities with her boyfriend. “I see the way that hound stares at him. I can see how excited she gets when he calls her name, ‘Missy,’ but I’m secure enough to feel safe with him and her.” According to Powell, she indicated that she didn’t feel that owning a girl dog was cheating. “I’d like to think that dogs and humans can be friends platonically.” 

Opposite sex pets weren’t the only thing newly considered cheating by heterosexual couples. 78% saw watching The Notebook as micro-cheating, 64% saw being too close with your parents as semi-cheating, 82% saw making eye contact with a photo of someone as partial-cheating, and 100% saw bumping into someone and knocking their notebooks out of their hand and then getting down to help them pick the books up as unequivocal cheating. 

Some theorize that the recent uptick in deleted puppy Instagram accounts to be related to the fears of cheating.