What does it mean to be dry in a relationship?

To make more of a mystery of monogamy, there's now a new trend in love land called dry dating. The 'dry' part comes from the lack of any physical component - not even lip locking.

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Dating is dominated by single people, right? Well apparently not, as courting isn't so clear-cut in 2010, as dare we say it, sometimes people in relationships also occupy the 'single' space.

Of course, there's no grey area to cheating - you're either faithful or unfaithful and the latter is sealed with a kiss. But what about the sessions before the snog? Is flirting, texting, tweeting and meeting up fair game or fundamentally cheating?

To make more of a mystery of monogamy, there's now a new trend in love land called dry dating. The 'dry' part comes from the lack of any physical component - not even lip locking.

Not convinced? We're with you, where's the appeal of torturing yourself with temptation or wrestling with questionable guilt?

Serial dry dater Melissa Howe from London, doesn't suffer with this because she makes sure everyone knows the score, "My boyfriend knows I have male friends I meet and the key thing on a dry date is that you're there, but unattainable - so boyfriend must be fondly mentioned in the first 15 minutes."

The good

To girls like Melissa, dry dating has two functions. Firstly to meet every girl's right to feel fabulous, flirt and have fun and secondly to help with their own relationships - it fills the void that their boyfriends have created, something Kelby McNally from Epsom found, "I was going though a rough patch with an ex, the temptation to dry date was thrown my way and I took it, it was mainly out of boredom." It seems bizarre, but the concept of a 'look but don't touch' approach can actually help rather than harm relationships. Dry dating can give girls the attention they're missing from a man without the need for physical intimacy. If you believe Melissa, then is can also help highlight what's lacking in your love life and help your figure out how to fix it.

The bad

Of course dry dating sounds like a doddle, if you have the willpower of Kate Moss next to a box of cupcakes, but temptation must rear its ugly head the longer you spend in the dry dating phase and especially after some cocktail consumption, as Kelby found out, "Something almost happened one time after a few drinks and events started occurring but I stopped it before anything naughty happened." And, what about the men in these scenarios, surely they have something to say? Ed Jones from Slough who dry dated for the second time last summer, felt the strain, "At first it was great to be taking someone else's girlfriend for a drink, it's a man thing I guess but I felt like I had 'one over' on him. But after a time it got frustrating as I really liked hanging out with her but all I could ever be was a surrogate for when her boyfriend couldn't be there."

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Rather than a way to ride out bad points in your relationship, dry dating can potentially be frustrating and, just like any love triangle, someone will inevitably get hurt be it a jealous boyfriend, a dry dater who feels they're being teased or you.

The sometimes ugly

We have a lot to thank the noughties approach to dating for, meeting men online, friends with benefits and now, dry dating, but attitudes never move as fast as trends and whatever your moral standpoint on dry dating, some will judge and you may even judge yourself with that niggling guilty conscience. And what about the boyfriends? How should they react and, lets face facts, would you be happy for him to dry date too? The telling of the other half is where dry daters are divided. Kelby stayed schtum: "I didn't tell my boyfriend because it was with one of his best friends and he would have been heartbroken. The whole thing was a little sleazy." Whereas Melissa stays open, "I don't mention individual incidents to my boyfriend anymore because he's just not fussed, I think the more of a big deal you make about these things,the more you can worry someone." What do you think about dry dating? Have you tried it or do you think it's morally wrong? Let us know in the comment boxes below WANT TO ENTER INTO THE WORLD OF ONLINE DATING? FIND A FITTIE WITH COSMO'S THE ONE

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