If a relationship is a story then his story is a failure. As a matter of fact, all of his stories have failed. Although he really thought the last story would succeed.

One of humanity's favorite story types is the fairy tale. In a sense, in the modern era, we in the West are weaned on the fairy tale as a paradigm of salvation, - romantic salvation. The princess, although of royal blood, through unhappy circumstance, is found in the situation of Cinderella or of Sleeping Beauty. She is the Hidden Princess awaitng the kiss of Prince Charming to awaken her. But as Anne Rice has so brilliantly pointed out in her novel, SLEEPING BEAUTY, the prince awakens her, not with so humble a thing as a kiss but with the thrust of his manhood deep into her womanhood. And if he cannot, then the princess will continue her slumber till another, more valiant prince, does the romantic deed.

In the case of Cinderella, the prince must himself place the magic glass slipper on her foot, an obvious symbol of raising her out of the ashes by demonstrating his ability to place his maleness correctly inside her femininity.

In either case, she is the Hidden Princess whose royalty will be revealed to the world. It is the man who is her savior.

The Hidden Prince and Princess are described by Dan Brown in his widely read novel, THE DAVINCI CODE, as none other than Jesus the Nazarene and Mary Magdalene. Although Christianity has, in the past, kept this story of romance from the faithful by making Jesus a human being without sexual passion and turning the Hidden Princess into a Fallen Woman, Christian scripture itself makes no such claims.

How can Jesus be human and not experience sexual passion? If so - he is not human but some sort of superhuman emotional eunuch. But from the apocryphal Gospel of Philip,  written in the middle of the second century, there is this - "The Lord loved Mary more than the disciples and he often kissed her on the mouth."

As for Mary, nowhere do the gospels explicitly say she is a harlot. There are Christian MIDRASHIM which identify her with the woman taken in adultery [John 8:3-11] and with the woman who washed the feet of Jesus [Luke 7:36-50]. Supposedly nonCatholic Christianity claims to rely only on scripture but no religion can do that.

But note this. Eastern [Greek] Christianity has no such tradition of the Magdalene being a fallen woman. It is only in the West, where Roman Catholicism saw women as evil disciples of the serpent or as witches, that she is robbed of her royalty and treated as a tramp. But the West is the very place where the romantic story of love arose.

My friend's life has contained many such fairy tales, and it appears at first that he will fullfill the role of the Hidden Prince to wake up his Sleeping Beauty. But eventually, he merely fulfills the role of the wolf from RED RIDING HOOD or more properly Rumpelstiltskin, an imp who promises to spin straw into gold for a miller's daughter if she will give him what is most precious to her. He promises to make the Princess' life golden if she will give him what's most precious to him, an affectionate relationship. When the miller's daughter reneges on their bargain, the imp loses his temper.

He loses his temper when the woman treats him no better than an evil little imp. And that shows him that she is not the hidden princess to be awakened by the prince's touch. Nor is she the one whose foot will fit the glass slipper even after three years of struggle. It could not be forced onto her strong foot. And even if she were Cinderella, it is now past midnight. The carriage has turned into a pumpkin; the horses have turned into mice. Neither is she Mary Magdalene which proves that he is not Jesus since he was not able to exorcise her demons. No. She is merely the latest imposter to abandon him in his old age. In effect, she is just someone whom he used to know

His stories are depressing because the years invested in the tale, the straw spun into gold, are rewarded in the end with nothing. And the most recent story is the worst because the love bargain seemed so sure as a happy ever after to the end story. But the Princess runs off with a more valiant prince, and THIS prince is left with his gold that might as well be turned back into straw - because its worth is no longer golden.

The story ends. If it were a movie, the screen would fade to black and the cast revealed. But my friend may not reveal the cast in this story because its revelation does not show salvation but its opposite, - damnation for both characters.

And let us say AMEN.