Honesty is the best policy for post-game hookups

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This article was published 20/07/2019 (2606 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: I have a problem some guys might die to have after a marriage breakup, but it’s uncomfortable for me. I belong to a mixed sports league where everybody is friends and goes out to eat and drink together after games. I am newly single in the group, not yet divorced. I’m living on my own and free to see other people — as my wife has certainly been doing for years.

Some of the women in my league really like me, and I have been out with them alone and things have gotten sexual in two cases. Great experiences for me. The thing is that it’s too early to settle down to one girlfriend. I got badly burned by my cheating wife and I’m too angry and untrusting to pin myself down to one woman. But then there’s my league and all these women.

How do you tell a woman nicely you want to go to bed with her but it’s only a one- or two-night thing, at most? And when do you state that?

— Nice Guy, But Staying Single, Winnipeg

Dear Staying Single: You could half-jokingly say, right off the top, “I wouldn’t go out with me if I were you, because I’m still too messed up and mad. I’m just out to have fun, no strings attached.”

Let that get around and a few women who would like nothing more than a fly-by-night adventure will identify themselves to you — subtly, or not so subtly. You have no idea how many unmarried (and married) women would like a one-night stand with a nice guy who isn’t ready for a relationship and is honest enough to say that.

You might have a grand summer this year by being completely honest about not being a love object.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I tried my new girlfriend’s red lace panties on when she forgot them at my place, and it felt hot and forbidden. When she came over the next time, I gave them back and confessed and she waited until I got undressed, and then put on my boxers. She pulled a face and said, “There, does that give you a thrill? Try to imagine how much you wearing my red panties gives me a thrill!”

That doused the flames. Now I feel stupid. But I do think she was unnecessarily nasty in ridiculing me. We haven’t had sex since, but we still talk on the phone. Is It over?

— Experiment Failed, West End

Dear Experiment: Yes, it’s over. You told her clearly with the panties move that you wanted some sex play wearing women’s underwear. She showed you as clearly as she could how little it would turn her on. She’s not into seeing her man in ladies’ lacy underwear. Now she’s gone cold and distant. She doesn’t know where you’re going with this and she isn’t asking.

Why not just let this relationship go? You’re wanting to experiment and she’s not the least bit interested. But there are other women who are into this kind of sex play, usually dominant, and may want to carry the scene much further.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: Cabin fights have already started to happen down at our lake, and I’m pressuring my husband to find us another cabin nearby to rent. His mother is the problem. I can’t imagine spending this whole summer with the two little kids and my bossy mother-in-law. I don’t like her rules or the way she speaks to my children. Yesterday, she slapped one of their little hands for not saying “please” and taking a cookie! Is she nuts? I lost it and told her off, saying, “Never again!” Things are horrible at the cabin now.

— Tearing My Hair Out, Lake of the Woods

Dear Tearing: Go home on any excuse, with no firm plan to return except for a weekend “sometime” in the summer. Nobody’s having any fun and your husband isn’t there to help. Go home and be queen of your house again with the kids, and let your man’s mother be queen of hers.

Adults often overestimate the time kids want to be away from their home and their own beds and the simplicity of a one-generation family. If you have a car with you, tell your mother-in-law you’re not feeling well and need to get home to see your doctor. If she asks what’s bothering you, tell her, “It’s kind of a private thing.”

If you are forced to wait until your husband gets there with a vehicle, be packed and ready and put stuff in the car right when he gets there, so he knows you can’t be dissuaded from this move home to the city for the summer.

Please send your questions and comments to lovecoach@hotmail.com or Miss Lonelyhearts c/o the Winnipeg Free Press, 1355 Mountain Ave., Winnipeg, MB, R2X 3B6.

Maureen Scurfield
Advice columnist

Maureen Scurfield writes the Miss Lonelyhearts advice column.

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