Friend can’t turn straight just because you’re beautiful

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 17/12/2017 (2850 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: I’m afraid to ask for the thing I most want for Christmas: I want my best friend to turn into my boyfriend, but he’s gay. He says he loves me, and he can love women as friends, but he only wants sex with men. I’m so confused by this. How is it that he loves me, but doesn’t want to make love with me? We tried it once, and he could hug me and even kiss me, but nothing else would happen for him. I am one of the sexiest women in my university classes and I know I have a sexual effect on other guys because I can see the hard evidence at a glance.

He says he can recognize and appreciate I’m sexy to other men, but his desire is not for me or any other woman sexually, except possibly for a woman who acts and dresses like a man, but that could only go so far. Once they got naked, his interest would be gone in a minute. The visual has to be a man, and the equipment has to be male.

I just don’t get it. I find him sexy and I could get physical with him, but he is one breath short of a big yawn trying to get hot with me.

— What Am I Missing? University of Manitoba

Dear What Am I Missing: You think you’re so beautiful and sexy you should be able to change someone’s entire sexual orientation! If only it were so simple. It’s not easy being gay. People don’t pick the difficult road in life — it generally chooses them.

Take pride and rejection out of this picture, and look at it another way. What if you were forced into a sexual union with another woman, and a beautiful woman at that. Would your body react sexually, or would you see a beautiful, sexy woman and know you couldn’t have sex with her? That is the situation your best male friend is in. His body is not interested in yours, except to appreciate your body as a great piece of art. Plus, he loves you as a friend.

Get over yourself! Your beauty does not supersede the way this man is wired. That means it’s not anybody’s fault. It’s not your failure, nor is it his. Stop railing at him over this, or you may lose a very dear friend.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I had a well-intentioned fight with my fat boss when I told him that I was worried about his breathing and his weight gain of about 50 pounds since his marriage broke up. I told him he needed to see a doctor about his laboured breathing, his reddened facial colour and his out-of-control weight gain. He was embarrassed and told me it was none of my business and reminded me of my own extra weight. I apologized profusely and backed out of the door.

I am his executive assistant and everyone at my work loves this guy — he’s the best boss in the world — but he’s going to kill himself with his eating and his lack of attention to his ballooning weight. Please help! Should the whole staff do an intervention?

— Worried Sick About His Health, St. James

Dear Worried Sick About his Health: Staff should not gang up on their boss in an intervention — it’s a bad political move — and you already got a taste of how he would feel being criticized by staff. Maybe his closest friends could approach him in a casual kind of intervention. He needs to go to his doctor for tests. Can you, as his EA, phone his closest buddies and at least get that happening?

As for the workplace, could your staff have a “pork-off contest” in the new year. Other companies do it. Everybody throws money in — enough to hurt just a little bit and make it interesting, say $30 — and first person to take off 30 pounds first gets the pot for losing their pot.

PS: Women get a five-pound handicap, because men naturally lose weight faster.

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