A COSMO Fairy Tale

Once upon a time, a COSMO princess emerged, a little vulnerable but unbroken, from a relationship with a no-good rat-skunk of a man. She had grown weary of weeping, hissing and spitting and was past the snot-nose, post-break-up, stay-at-home-with-a-box-DVD-set stage of grief and rage. Hurray! She was ready to get up to some mischief.

‘Go out!’ said her wicked-but-sensible Fairy Godfriend. ‘Break some hearts! Get your hair messed up! Think like a man. Nothing serious. No fantasies of relationships or marriage and babies. Just go and have fun!’

‘I’m ready,’ she said, and wriggled into a skinny-mini dress and whisked out to a party, where she met a charming, solvent friend-of-a-friend.

Who panted around for a bit, like a puppy with a new toy, then asked for her number …and called! ‘Can you believe it?’ she said. ‘What now!?’

Her cellphone rang again. It was her lovely unicorns-and-rainbows Good Fairysister, bursting with advice and excitement: ‘Don’t sleep with him until the 12th date, whatever you do. Men are hunters! Show some decorum – do not listen to that wicked Fairy Godfriend! If you sleep with him he won’t ever respect you again. It’ll be over before it’s even begun!’

‘Bollocks!’ said the wicked-but-sensible Fairy Godfriend. (This is a COSMO fairy tale. There can be adult language.) ‘You want to have some fun! You are sensible and a grown-up. Do whatever the hell you want!’

So, clever COSMO girl that our princess was, she listened to her wicked-but-sensible Fairy Godfriend and went out and tousled her hair. When she was ready. When she felt the time was right for her.

Which was just a little sooner than her unicorns-and-rainbows Good Fairysister felt comfortable with, but ... our princess did not turn into a frog. And her maybe-prince did not disappear immediately in a puff of smoke. Chances are they will both live happily ever after. Maybe not together.

Who knows? Whether you are ‘good’ or ‘bad’, whether you sleep with a man on the first date or after date number 27, there is no guarantee that anything you do will make a man do what you want. And who wants to make a man do, think or feel what you anything?

Sometimes it pays just to have some fun, and see where that, plus a light touch, takes you. Without hating yourself the next day. Matters of the heart involve risk. Human beings are unpredictable. Be good, be bad - just be sensible. Be careful and make your decisions based on whatever seems right for you.

A good man (a real prince, if you will) will love your independent spirit and your powerful sense of self. As you should too.
That is the stuff of happy endings.

Author: Vanessa Raphaely