Today is International Happiness Day.

I’m cool with that, there’s nothing wrong with taking a day out to make sure you’re feeling perky.

What I am most definitely not cool with though is the press release I received yesterday from a married dating site claiming that the secret of happiness is an extra-marital affair.

What the proverbial f*ck?

According to their research, “89% of people who are actively looking for an affair claim it has made them feel happier” and “78% said they feel their marriage has improved since joining the site”.

What a pile of crap. These people haven’t improved their marriage because they don’t have a marriage – they are cheating. How can you possibly for a minute believe that a relationship based on lies and deceit is a happy and healthy one? 

I’m not trying to take some moral high ground here or present myself as totally naive – I understand that people have affairs. What I don’t understand though is how these people can claim it makes them happy. Being at a point in your marriage where you are having an affair in the first place is bad enough, but most affairs are in themselves miserable, wretched and exhausting things.

What made me most furious though was the blatant exploitation and manipulation on the part of the dating site. Do they honestly believe that they are somehow contributing to the nation’s happiness and helping to create happy marriages by promoting their services? Are they actually trying to win new customers with the promise that an affair will lead to happiness, all on the back of something like International Happiness Day, something that is meant to be positive and uplifting.

A spokesperson for the site comments: “Our members, whether they have found an illicit partner or not, are taking control of their lives and looking for that something that’s missing from their current relationship, be it physical or mental; they are taking a positive step towards personal fulfilment and that is going to make you happy.”

What a crock of shit. A positive step would be to talk to their partners and tell them how they are feeling, not to start living a deceitful double life.

What do you think? Am I being unreasonable is being so cross about this?