Co-worker doesn’t need your gossipy nose in her business

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 19/11/2016 (3299 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: There is a new woman at work no one knows anything about. If you try to find things out, she sidesteps you. Finally, I got her alone by offering to drive her home and was yapping away about my own kids to try to get something back from her. I looked over and she was crying softly. Then she said, “I used to have a child.” Well, that shut me up, and I was busy giving her tissues, clucking sympathetically and didn’t ask her the big question: What happened? Nothing more came out and my friends at work and I are all dying to know. What do you think?

— Nosy, Aren’t We? The Maples

Dear Nosy: Sorry to be so tough, but you need to mind your own business and let this poor lady get through the work day feeling like she’s not a gossip target. She told you a secret, which is huge in her private life, and you deserve no details other than that, yet you have already blabbed it to the other women at work.

She deserves your warmth and respect, and you have to stop bragging about your own children in front of her. You have other friends to do that with. She knows you now and may offer more information when she can — if and when she’s ready. People don’t usually lose children under anything but tragic circumstances and she was crying. Her child may have become ill and died or been in an accident. She could have had to give her baby up, or the father got custody and lives with the child far away. It could also have been a miscarriage. There are numerous scenarios.

Just be friendly at work, have lunch with her and introduce her to others. Send her your best wishes in your mind, smile, be warm to her and talk about any common topic she’s comfortable with. It’s great comfort when people can feel that kind of respect and acceptance coming through. If she wants to tell you more about the child she lost, she will; if she can’t talk about it, she won’t. And you could do her the favour of ending the gossip and speculation when it starts up at work.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: The first time I ever had sex with a girl, it was terrible. I apologized immediately, and she rolled her eyes. I took her home and wasn’t too worried about consequences since we used a condom. She phoned me a few weeks later and told me she was OK and not pregnant. I thanked her and got off the phone fast. We were only 17. Luckily, it’s a big city and I never saw her again until I ran into her this week at a business affair. I hardly recognized her; she is everybody’s dream woman these days.

It was one of those open-bar mixers and I guess she had a few drinks. She came over to me and stabbed her finger in my chest and said, “You! I’ve got a bone to pick with you. Why did you never ask me out again?” I gulped and couldn’t think what to say. “I thought you’d never want to see me again after my, er, lousy performance,” and she said, “You idiot! I was crazy about you then. We could have figured it out, but you just dumped me.”

I stuttered how sorry I was, and as I looked at her, I realized how very sorry I was. So, I asked her if she would like to go out with me again, and she said I was too late. She fell in love with another man and married him. He was at the party, but I turned down an offer to meet him and slunk away.

I’m writing so you can please tell the young guys out there not to do what I did. I had spent a whole year working up to asking her to be my girlfriend, then missed out because of what happened in the back seat of my car and my stupid pride afterward.

— Shaking My Head, Downtown

Dear Shaking My Head: Had you gotten deeply into that romance at 17, and sex was part of the scene, you two could have gotten pregnant using just condoms and had your youth cut short with a child, had an abortion and felt sad and guilty, or gotten married as teenagers and had to grow up early. Don’t spend too much time regretting the different forks in the road of your life that you didn’t take and enjoy what is around you and ahead of you.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: This note is for “Not Everybody’s Joke,” the guy who twisted his ankle having sex — his hockey teammates thought he was lying and his doctor burst out laughing. Regardless of the cause of injury, a twisted ankle that stays swollen and painful can be the start of something much worse, such as complex regional pain syndrome, a chronic pain that can set in after something as common as a twisted or sprained ankle or wrist. This person needs to see a doctor who takes pain seriously.

— Not Impressed, Winnipeg

Dear Not Impressed: There’s fault on both sides. People wouldn’t be so quick to laugh if this fellow weren’t so quick to give out the naughty details. How does his girlfriend feel when people look at her and snicker?

As for the doctor, maybe a little grin would have been more appropriate than a big hee-haw, but the doc is human, after all. The idea of a person twisting his ankle during sex does set the mind a-reeling.

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.

Miss Lonelyhearts
Advice Columnist

   Read full biography