The holidays are a great time to meet someone

Opinion

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This article was published 12/12/2017 (2854 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I met a woman on the bus to school and she was a ray of sunshine. She chatted away beside me all through the drive to the University of Manitoba, and I responded with stories of my own. I just got the biggest kick out of her. I wanted to ask her name and to ask her out, but I chickened out.

Now I don’t know how to find her again without being creepy. I have taken the exact same bus at the exact same time every day since — it’s my usual trip to school — and she is never on it. Short of posting lost puppy signs all over with my photo on it, and an appeal to her to contact me and take me home, I don’t know what to do.

— The Dunce, University of Manitoba

Dear Dunce: This outgoing sweetie wasn’t leery of you on the bus, so she would have been OK with giving you her name, or maybe even a phone number. The poster idea isn’t great — it does have a desperate, creepy factor to it.

With a chance meeting like this, you snooze, you usually lose. Your task when you meet a wonderful woman is to ask for a contact method. Anything will do: a phone number, email or a name for Facebook. You blew this one, so give up on it and make sure you carry a pen and paper to scribble down contact info next time. Now, stop wasting your time and enjoy the holiday season. Go to all the parties and get-togethers you can, and initiate a few of your own. Be the one who gets people together for after-dinner drinks and weekend fun, and party karma will likely bring you, the happy host, a lady or two.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: When is it proper to ask a guy out for New Year’s Eve? I am gay and have a couple of casual boyfriends. I don’t want to be alone on that night. Are you supposed to wait until after Christmas before you make a date or a real plan? I don’t want to look over-anxious, but there’s one new guy who’s so hot I want to ask him out now before some other guy gets his hands on him. There are some parties I know of that night, and the fireworks at The Forks are nearby.

— Party Hardy 2018, St. Boniface

Dear Party Hardy: Line up that date right away, as it’s less than three weeks before the 2018 festivities and you have an exciting plan. So call him and name the house parties, other dance-club activities and the fireworks, and maybe dinner first at a cool place. You would have to book for two now, even at small places, as everybody’s going out for dinner that night.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I got into a fight with my boss and it didn’t end well. I imagine I have been written up and she’ll be looking for a way to add more bad papers to the pile to get rid of me.

I don’t know if I should be looking for a job or not. This isn’t a career job — I work in a restaurant — but I make great tips here. Should I go to all this trouble now or just suck up to the person I fought with? She was actually in the right, but I’m stubborn.

— Lippy Waiter, Winnipeg

Dear Lippy Waiter: Swallow your pride, make a sincere apology and make sure you say, on thinking it over, she was right, you are sorry you blew up over it and won’t do anything like that again. Apologies really make a difference to people. If you just walked away to cool down it’s still not too late to have a private talk and get past this hump. She may walk into her office and crumple up the letter, at least in her mind.

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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