Kwinten, 27, from Waregem in West Flanders, delivered his message in the modern way: via multimedia. He sent Fanja 50 SMSes a day; he contacted radio stations to announce his regret; he hung a banner across the E17 motorway reading: “Fanja I’m sorry”; and he made the pages of Het Nieuwsblad and De Standaard with a desperate appeal for forgiveness.

There’s a lot to forgive. “I don’t think this is going to get sorted out,” Fanja told Het Nieuwsblad. “This is the third time he’s cheated on me. We had something wonderful together, but now Kwinten has broken it.”

And how: Fanja went out to dinner with friends, came back to their regular café and found Kwinten upstairs, on a bed, with a Dutch woman he met last year at the Dranouter festival. Neither of them was clothed.

Nothing left at that point, traditionalists will know, than to send a bunch of flowers. And sure enough, that is what set in motion the melting of the maiden’s heart. “We had a long talk. We’ve made up to some extent, but Kwinten still has a long way to go,” Fanja told Het Nieuwsblad.

And in between revealing Kwinten’s weaknesses to the entire world, she expressed some sympathy. “Every time I hear him come on the radio, and I think of the whole of Flanders laughing at him, I shed tears,” she admitted. “It’s all so sweet. He’s really doing his best.” But for now, Fanja is staying with a friend. “It’ll be another couple of months,” she says, “before all wounds are healed.”