Guilty conscience puts an end to date

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 10/07/2017 (3363 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: I met a beautiful man at a friend’s beach house last weekend. I was thinking of him and kept asking my friend to set us up, so she called him. On the fourth day my phone rang and it was that gorgeous beast asking me to meet him for a drink after work. I was thrilled!

I met him at The Forks and we went for a two-hour drink before he explained sympathetically that he was sorry but he was taken. He acted like a teacher talking down to a smitten student.

I was so hugely embarrassed that my friend had phoned him about my pining. Why did he bother seeing me for the drink? Why didn’t he tell our mutual friend he has a girlfriend who lives in Toronto he met online and it’s fairly serious? Or did my friend actually know?

— Mortified, Osborne Village

Dear Mortified: It’s highly likely neither your friend nor Mr. Beautiful were telling the whole truth.

Either 1) Your friend knew, but thought it was worth a try because the girlfriend was far away in Toronto 2) The guy was lonely and thought, what the heck, I’ll go meet this woman who’s so hot for me, have a drink and tell her I’m not free (but get my ego stroked beforehand). 3) He was actually quite attracted to you when he first met you at the beach, made the date, then got the immediate guilts on arrival for his cheat night.

Long-distance romances create loneliness, and sometimes people on either side hunger for physical connection here and now.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: My boyfriend stinks. Summers are the worst. He sweats right through his deodorant and refuses to wear antiperspirant to stop the reeking pores. He says the chemicals are going to kill us. I would like to be free to be closer to him without having to ask him to have a shower first. It’s like being in love with a sweaty barn animal.

I love him, but can’t stand being with him in a car, for instance, or a small room. In order to have sex, he has to shower immediately before. He swears he can’t smell it himself. I feel like his mother half the time, which isn’t sexy. What do you suggest?

— In Love With a Stinker, Transcona

Dear In Love With a Stinker: What a shame he can’t smell himself anymore. Maybe he really digs his own smell now.

I once was acquainted with a couple who both smelled awful to other people. They loved each other’s “perfume,” but nobody else wanted to go to their apartment, a small place that smelled enough to make one’s eyes water. Since you love your man, it would be worth researching this problem for alternative remedies. Perhaps a naturopath could help, along with a change of diet, or a combination of the two.

But, if nothing works with this man, ask yourself if you’re sure this is the person you want to spend your whole life with. His smell will keep certain friends away, may cause trouble at his work and be an embarrassment for your children with their friends

Dear Readers: This letter below is regarding the advice I offered to Worried Sick, the gentleman whose cat had just had kittens. I suggested various ways to find homes for the kittens. Other readers said the mother should be spayed immediately and all cats should be kept indoors, so they’ll live longer. In replying, I mused on how I would feel if I were a captive cat, saying “I would rather be a cat who’s let outside for five years than one who’s trapped in a house for 15 years.”

The reader — Just My Two Cents — said my musing appears to ignore a city bylaw known as the responsible pet ownership bylaw, of which many people seem blissfully unaware. This bylaw, in effect since 2014, requires cat owners to keep their cats on a leash at all times except when on the owner’s property or on the property of another person who has consented to the presence of an unleashed cat. A cat found loose is considered running at large.

“As a past cat owner, it is difficult to ensure that a feline does not escape a fenced rear yard (or front yard where the fence height is more restricted), particularly if left unattended.”

— Just My Two Cents, Winnipeg

Dear Just My Two Cents: My comment was a personal reflection on the quality of life for an indoor cat, not a comment on the laws of the City of Winnipeg. So let me go further in my musings: if I were a cat, I would like to live in the country, roam in the woods and fields and take my chances at getting picked off by a predator within a few years. But then, I’m a freedom-loving being — one of my highest values in this life. You are a past cat owner. Maybe you gave up on keeping cats because you feel the same way I do.

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

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