Well Hello Ashley Madison!

                               Till 'death do us part' is obviously not so important right now; or that is what Ashley Madison would like us believe. For those not in the know, this is a website catering exclusively to people in a relationship, who would like to have a bit of fun on the side. Obviously there are a lot of takers as their membership is growing and growing fast.

                               So what does constitute an extra marital affair? Clinton (infamously) put forward the premise as there was no ehm...penetration, adultery was not committed. Sounds very convenient to me.  I wonder what his definition of an affair would be. He was not romantically involved so maybe he didn't have an affair either?

                              This brings me to the burning issue right now, an issue which websites like Ashley Madison ironically put in front of us, by making it so easy to meet people online (and then offline too). Is an online relationship counted as an extra marital affair if the people never really meet? Methinks one would have to define the term 'relationship' for that.

                              Is it if you spend an inordinate time corresponding with one individual and look forward with excitement to any communication from them?  Playing the devil’s advocate; don't we all get all keyed up at some point when we get an email from one friend or the other? Would we be having an affair with all those people? I don't think so. 

                            Some are of the opinion the answer would lie in the content, the tone and the time spent on such a pursuit. So are you excited about what they are saying or who is saying it? More excited about the person...hmm...you are on dodgy ground. 

Tone could be a double edged sword, we all know that one can say so much by saying nothing about it at all : 'reading between the lines'. (Drat...questions! questions! questions!)

                            For me, I think it would be the time spent, do you drop everything when you hear that ping 'you've got mail'? Do you read their message three and four times? Do you itch to reply immediately? If you do my friend then it is high time you ask yourself what is going on.

So what do you think constitutes an online affair?