Lisa Solod Warren is another. Warren, Desire's editor, "had long been a reader of fairy tales," but always thought something was missing from the "happily ever after" narrative style — like, what happened "After the Happily Ever After." (Interesting sidenote: the American "happily ever after" derived from a German saying that "if they haven't died yet, they're still alive today." When you hear someone say that original fairy tales are grittier than their Disney counterparts, this is exactly what they're getting at).

As Warren learned in her first marriage, "real fairytales don't always have happy endings." After 20 years of a passionless, communication-less union, Warren decides to call it quits.
"My ex was a perfectly good man," she admits, "but he just wasn't good for me. This is a hard thing to realize, an even harder thing to do something about."

Divorce was the something she did, despite her doubts that she'd ever be able to find the love she longed for, especially as a divorcee on the north side of 50.

"Enter Michael. He was my real life doppelganger, my soul mate, my Vulcan mind-meld."

Warren, to this day, still harbors doubts, well aware that her fairy tale could end prematurely.

"But I am deeply committed to the happily ever after," she writes, "to the true end of the story."

The Timeless Question

What, I ask again, do women want?

The man who can ask that question at the individual, and not the corporate level. The man who'll sacrifice when he knows what the girl he wants, needs. And someone who doesn't need Kay Jewelers to tell him what a good Christmas present is.