Is Anyone Faithful Anymore?

Is anyone monogamous any more? Truly monogamous? We may not be having serial affairs in the John Terry/Tiger Woods mode. We may not find ourselves transgressing as dramatically as Iris Robinson. Or as publicly – and ineptly – as Ashley Cole. But we are probably less monogamous than we used to be, aren't we? We're perhaps having extended flirtations; serious and not-so-serious dalliances; special, ostensibly platonic lunch dates with people we see more regularly than we'd like our partners to know. We are, at the very least, testing the borders of fidelity via the medium of text message, or Facebook connections, or Twitter exchanges; the Vernon Kays of the non-celebrity sphere. And some of us are having fully fledged, old-fashioned, impassioned affairs.

- Polly Vernon, the Guardian