Once upon a time there was a beautiful sweet young lady called Cinderella. She worked around the clock as a personal assistant to her cruel and ambitious stepmother.
One day the prince, on the insistence of his mother the queen who was worried that her son was in his third decade and there still was no heir to the throne, invited all the maidens in the land to a ball, so he could choose a wife.
Cinderella would have liked to go but could definitely not afford a designer dress. So, just as she was cursing her bad luck, up popped her Fairy Godmother and turned Cinderella's rags into a shimmering gown, complete with a delicate pair of glass Manolos.
At the ball, the entire court was entranced by Cinderella, especially the prince, who, completely mesmerised, never left her side. She left only at the final stroke of midnight, just before the spell was broken and lost one of her glass slippers on the steps of the palace.
The next day the prince made a frantic search for the owner of the glass shoe. At last he found Cinderella, dramatically went down on one knee and asked her to marry him. To which of course she said yes, because she was totally in love.
They married and lived happily ever after... until one day, the prince came back from whatever it is that fairytale princes do during their day, and told her: "Cinderella I'm not sure this is the life I want," and set off for a long walk, or so he said. The next day, he came in and without looking her in the eye, said: "I need my space."
Cinderella was completely lost and bewildered, even more so because the prince all of a sudden had taken to wearing very tight clothes. Why, he even got the royal tailor to tuck in his clothes two or three inches because he wanted 'to accentuate his six-pack' (princes only have fairytale mirrors and they never reflect back the paunch).
On the third day as he sat at the dining table he told Cinderella: "Do you mind if you move to the Royal Country House for the time being, I really, really need my space."
Broken hearted, the perplexed and lonely girl packed her stuff and left for the country. Because Cinderella was too good and too in love with her prince she kept hoping and hoping that he'll come back from his palace on a white steed and together they'd ride to watch the sunrise together forever till they grow old and wrinkled.
The prince rang her once to tell her that he was not missing her: "I thought you were the right one for me but I think you're not". It was at that point that Cinderella got a phone call from her more streetwise friend Snow White who spelled it out to her: "I'm sorry Cinds your prince is really a frog." Which is fairytale-speak for: he's having an affair.
This is a story you've probably heard a million times. Affairs are so becoming the norm that I'm sure in a few years they'll really be featuring in Disney cartoons as part of everyday life. There's a script to it, and for the clueless the most revealing key word is 'space' which nine times out of 10 translates to 'Girl on The Side'.
In the US there's even a social networking website for married people looking to have affairs, which registers more than two-and-a-half million users. Last month, the company put up a billboard in New York's Times Square, featuring an open hotel room door with a couple embracing inside.
On the door, a sign read, 'Life is short. Have an affair.'
The site claims it's making the world a better place because people don't have the courage to be open with their spouses.
It is offering paying customers a platform from which to operate so they can have the cake and eat it.
It is sad indeed that as a society we've reached a point where we are flaunting and romanticising cheating, instead of curbing it. This is the making of a society which shuns and ridicules morals.
Marriage is a very serious commitment - that's why we make a public declaration of it and why we invite an audience to witness our devotion.
But it seems that the vows of matrimony pale next to the need of self-preservation: some men (and some women) want to preserve the impression that they are still thrusting young bachelors. No wonder there are high separation rates in the western world - including Malta.
Consequently, now more than ever, when choosing a partner for life we cannot afford to be naïve. Maybe we cannot even afford to wear the rose-tinted glasses of love, because life is too short to fall for a frog.