It’s time to tune out the meddling naysayers

Advertisement

Advertise with us

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: I hate my boss so much that I screamed obscenities at him, and he yelled back, “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

Read this article for free:


or

Already have an account? Log in here »

To continue reading, please subscribe:

Subscribe and receive a limited-edition Free Press branded hat or tote.

Digital Subscription

One year of digital access for only $205*

  • Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
  • Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
  • Access News Break, our award-winning app
  • Play interactive puzzles

*First annual payment billed as $205.00 + GST for one year. This annual subscription will automatically renew at $233.00 + GST every 52 weeks (10% off the regular annual price of $259.35). Offer available to new and qualified returning subscribers only. Cancel any time.

To continue reading, please subscribe:

Add Free Press access to your Brandon Sun subscription for only an additional

$1 for the first 4 weeks*

  • Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
  • Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
  • Access News Break, our award-winning app
  • Play interactive puzzles
Start now

*Your next Brandon Sun subscription payment will increase by $1.00 and you will be charged $17.95 plus GST for four weeks. After four weeks, your payment will increase to $24.95 plus GST every four weeks.

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 16/09/2024 (713 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: I hate my boss so much that I screamed obscenities at him, and he yelled back, “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

I had already quit anyway, so it didn’t matter what he said.

I was relieved, but still knew I’d have to pay my rent and I have no savings. That meant big trouble. I’m still friends with my recent ex-boyfriend, so I phoned him to explain what was happening.

What a nice guy he turned out to be. He said he wouldn’t give me money, but he would let me work for three months at his restaurant so I could get a regular cheque and keep my place while I looked for another job.

I was so grateful. Of course, I said yes to his offer.

We’ll never be back together as a couple, and that’s just fine. I love him as a platonic friend now. Anyway, he already has a nice new girlfriend, and she’s sweeter to him than I ever was.

I start my new job waitressing at his place this week. In my excitement, I told my mother about the situation and that my ex is giving me three whole months of work. She yelled, “You’ll be working for your ex-boyfriend? Have you lost your mind? You’ll probably get pregnant.”

You mean like she did, with me? She got pregnant by my dad — her older boss — way back when.

Then she said she hoped I wasn’t thinking about moving back in with her. I told her I wasn’t.

Her nasty comment cemented my decision to work hard for my ex until Christmas at least. I’m also aware there will be plenty of raised eyebrows and comments from other people.

Please tell me how should I handle them? My business is my business.

— Learning on My Own, St. Boniface

Dear Learning: If interfering people have the nerve to doubt your new work situation, don’t dignify them with an answer. Stare them down until their sly conversations come to a halt, then walk away casually like they mean nothing to you.

In the same vein, be sure to keep your conversations with your mom short for the time being. Here’s a harmless phone-call dismissal: “My ex and I were always meant to be just friends, and now we really are. I will do a good job working for him. Bye for now.” Click.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: My girlfriend is out in the garden harvesting questionable health-potion ingredients like so many other gullible people who seem to be on this kick I’m reading about everywhere.

I don’t believe in these magical plant boosters and cures for our health that my mate is so high on. In fact, it creeps me out that she might be slipping them to me secretly in my food, particularly the weird ones to enhance sex.

I don’t know the names of her different plants, but she has warned me not to touch them in the garden — and just leave the preparation to her. I don’t trust that.

Today, I was home alone and read some bookmarked recipes in her newest cookbook, and it freaked me out. I don’t even want to taste her dishes now. What should I do?

— Nervous Guy, Charleswood

Dear Nervous: Go shopping without your girlfriend and start preparing healthy dinners with fresh ingredients that will tempt her. Tell her she can just put her feet up while you cook. She may just relax and stop pushing her own concoctions (although some of them may be really good if you give them a chance).

Also, play the gratitude card. Tell her she’s so good to you in so many other ways that she deserves to rest at the end of day. Make lots of healthy dinners and hopefully you can ride things out until the big freeze-up.

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

Maureen Scurfield

Maureen Scurfield
Advice columnist

Maureen Scurfield writes the Miss Lonelyhearts advice column.

Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber.

Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.

Report Error Submit a Tip

More Stories

Manitoba Hydro’s strategy: Deny, deny, deny

Tim Sale 4 minute read Preview

Manitoba Hydro’s strategy: Deny, deny, deny

Tim Sale 4 minute read Friday, Aug. 28, 2026

Here’s a good story…

A man walks into your office and says, “Have I got a deal for you! I want $3 billion (plus perhaps a bit more) to build you something that you might use three or even four times a year, for maybe 30-60 hours each time. Sign here.”

You might respond… “and I’ve got a lovely bridge for sale…”

That is exactly what Manitoba Hydro wants — $3 billion or more, plus the fossil fuel bonus for peak load events that happen a few times each year. They assure us that the gas turbines will only be used very occasionally. At the same time, they tell us that we are headed for a crisis of energy supply by 2030.

Read
Friday, Aug. 28, 2026

Foreign workers at Manitoba hotel are owed $138-K in unpaid wages and fees, labour board rules

Abiola Odutola 4 minute read Preview

Foreign workers at Manitoba hotel are owed $138-K in unpaid wages and fees, labour board rules

Abiola Odutola 4 minute read 11:47 AM CDT

BRANDON — The Manitoba Labour Board has ordered the Western Star All Suites Hotel to pay nearly $138,000 in unpaid wages and administrative fees after it dismissed the appeals involving three foreign workers employed by the company.

In a decision dated Aug. 25, the board ordered 6692452 Manitoba Ltd. (doing business as Western Star All Suites Hotel), 1638185 Alberta Ltd. and company director P.X. to pay a total of $137,915.79 to the Employment Standards Branch for wages owed to foreign workers S.J., J.B. and G.R.

The decision was edited to protect the personal information of the employees, who worked at a hotel, reportedly in Melita, at different times and also lived there during their employment.

The board stated the employees were owed wages after hearing evidence about long working hours, irregular payments, inadequate employment records and working conditions.

Read
11:47 AM CDT

Looking back on Bombers shocking, and convincing, win over CFL’s top team

Taylor Allen 6 minute read Preview

Looking back on Bombers shocking, and convincing, win over CFL’s top team

Taylor Allen 6 minute read Yesterday at 4:52 PM CDT

It was getting harder and harder to believe in the 2026 edition of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

If anyone outside their locker room picked them to beat the Montreal Alouettes, they must’ve kept it to themselves, as pundits — this one included — and armchair quarterbacks across the nation doubted their chances heading into Friday night.

And honestly, rightfully so. The Bombers had left a lot to be desired through their opening 10 games.

But no matter what the stats say or what outsiders think, they play the games for a reason.

Read
Yesterday at 4:52 PM CDT

Winnipeg man among those missing in Nepal flash flood

Free Press staff 2 minute read Preview

Winnipeg man among those missing in Nepal flash flood

Free Press staff 2 minute read Yesterday at 10:06 AM CDT

A Winnipeg man on a pilgrimage in Nepal is among nearly 2,000 people missing after a deadly flash flood devastated a popular tourist region along the Himalayan border earlier this week.

Mohit Kaushik, 49, was travelling with a tour group taking part in the Kailash Manasarovar Yatra, a sacred, days-long pilgrimage to Mount Kailash and Lake Manasarovar in neighbouring Tibet, according to social media posts.

“Our friend and neighbour, Mohit Kaushik, a resident of Winnipeg, Canada, has been out of contact since yesterday while travelling from Timure during his pilgrimage to Kailash Mansarovar,” Swikriti Pokhrel wrote in a social media post. “If you have seen him or find his name on any hospital list, please let us know. Thank you.”

Kaushik has not been heard from since Wednesday, when a glacier collapse in the nearby Himalayas triggered catastrophic flooding and landslides, sending a torrent of ice, rock and debris roughly 100 kilometres downstream.

Read
Yesterday at 10:06 AM CDT

Beware invasive, ‘frightening’ waterhemp

Laura Rance-Unger 4 minute read Preview

Beware invasive, ‘frightening’ waterhemp

Laura Rance-Unger 4 minute read Yesterday at 2:01 AM CDT

There’s a threat lurking on the edge of Manitoba farmers’ fields this fall that’s even scarier than the escalating trade war with their biggest customer.

Provincial extension advisers are warning farmers to watch for a weed known as “tall waterhemp,” which, true to its name, may already be towering above ready-to-harvest crops.

Those wispy tentacles waving in the breeze look pretty innocuous from a distance. But this highly invasive member of the pigweed family produces hundreds of thousands of seeds that are just itching for dispersal through farmers’ combines and across their fields.

Each of those tiny seeds — one small pill container filled halfway holds 44,000 — can produce plants with stems the width of saplings and heights of two to five metres. One or two plants can quickly turn into a patch. If waterhemp takes over a field, it can choke out the growing crop and cut yields by more than 90 per cent.

Read
Yesterday at 2:01 AM CDT

Former care home nurse fined $8,000 for ‘disturbing in the extreme’ 2025 incident

Morgan Modjeski 3 minute read Preview

Former care home nurse fined $8,000 for ‘disturbing in the extreme’ 2025 incident

Morgan Modjeski 3 minute read Thursday, Aug. 27, 2026

A former nurse has been fined $8,000 and is facing numerous restrictions after making a mistake “no registered nurse should have made” by inserting 10 centimetres of gauze into a patient’s anus instead of dressing a nearby wound.

Read
Thursday, Aug. 27, 2026