So you’re super pumped you just nabbed yourself a great new bf/gf. Problem is, they seem to want to share their greatness with the world—like, seriously, the WHOLE world. You’re dating a flirt.  Now what?

Don’t revenge flirt! It may be tempting to give your partner a taste of their own medicine and match their actions with questionable ones of your own. Although this may make you feel good in the moment, it will just create a relationship full of game playing. And in the end, that won’t make either of you happy.

Confront them gently. The best thing to do when a significant other’s actions are making you uneasy is to talk with them about it. There is a tendency to want to be “laid back” or not look “too possessive,” and that can certainly make talking about their flintiness a challenge. But at the end of the day, relationships mean compromise, and if you’re uncomfortable you have to bring it up. If you confront them gently (i.e. no yelling or name calling) the conversation is bound to go MUCH more smoothly.

Focus on how it makes you feel. As opposed to attacking your bf/gf’s actions, focus on how those actions make you feel. For example, don’t say: “You writing winky-faces on other guys’ Facebook walls and greeting all your dude friends with ‘hey sexy’ is immature and needs to stop.” Instead, say something like: “You writing winky-faces on other  guys’  Facebook walls and greeting all your dude friends with ‘hey sexy’ makes me feel like I don’t matter to you, and makes me uncomfortable.” That way, your partner won’t feel attacked, and will be more likely to come to the conclusion: “Hey, I got a good thing going on, maybe I should check myself.”

Know that flirting does not equal intension to cheat. Just because your partner enjoys attention from other people does not necessarily mean that they would take things to the next level and actually cheat. People get used to interacting with others in different ways. What may seem flirty to you may not be flirty to your significant other. To them, they might be enjoying a conversation, but have no interest or intention of it being anything more than that. Just because their behavior makes you feel uneasy, doesn’t necessarily mean there were sketchy motives behind it.

Flirting means more about your partner than your relationship. Some people need extra validation from others in order to feel good about themselves. As backwards as it may seem, your partner might like you so much that he/she constantly wants to show you other people are interested too. It might be their way of proving: look, you made a good choice—other people want what you have. Very likely, their flirtatious nature has to do with their own insecurities, not their desire to meet someone else. Of course, sketchy is sketchy. Someone who flirts in front of you is one thing. Someone being really flirty with other people behind your back and trying to cover their tracks—that’s a whole other ball game. A game that I might call game OVER.

Do you have any strategies for dealing with an overly flirtatious partner? We want to hear them! Share your stories and advice in the comments.

* image credit: getyourlaughback.com 

Amber Madison has been writing about sex, love, and relationships since college (she went to Tufts University) when she wrote for her school newspaper's sex ed column. Since graduating, she's published two books: Hooking Up: A Girl's All-Out Guide to Sex and Sexuality and Talking Sex With Your Kids and has been quoted in a ton of different media outlets from Seventeen magazine to MTV to NPR. Have a question for Amber? Send us an email!