Grifters take advantage of naive teenage girl

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This article was published 13/10/2019 (2550 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: Bad guys are all over the place! I am almost 19, but not very smart about what’s going on, it seems. So I go to this new church and I meet a guy and I figure he must be all right because he loves the Lord.

He’s kind of a downtown guy, dressed a little rough, but he’s very cute. We start seeing each other for coffee after church, and then I go home on the bus.

The last time we met for coffee, he asked me to pay for both of us and give him money for the bus. I paid, but was shocked he would be so nervy. I said, “Where do you live, anyway?” and he said, “That’s for me to know and you to find out.” I went back to church the next week and he wasn’t there. I don’t get it.

I also met a guy at a coffee shop where I was studying in the Osborne area. This guy slid in and sat with me without asking. He asked me if I would buy him a coffee and I said, “No, and I have to be alone to study.” Then he swore at me, calling me a terrible couple of names ending with “rich bitch.”

What is it with guys these days? Where can I go on my own and not be harassed or taken for a fool and a sucker?

— A Female Target? Crescentwood

Dear Target: If you’re going to places downtown and around Osborne Street, to church or study nooks, go with a friend. Then it’s not so easy for a guy to try to pick you up or hit you up for coffee, food or bus money — or hurt your feelings, for that matter.

They may really be down and out and actually be hungry. How do you know? Anyway, you are too inexperienced and young to be alone and looking like you won’t have the nerve to resist these hustlers.

Either change to well-frequented coffee shops where many people study or hit the books at your school or at home. Don’t be a sitting duck anymore. As for church, take a friend with you or sit up near the front where no one is likely to slide in beside you looking for something other than the Lord.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: Our family is large — almost 25 French relatives living near us. They are proposing we all go on a cruise together — the cruise of a lifetime — for Christmas.

My husband and five children don’t want to go, and we are the biggest family. My kids are old enough to have sweethearts and want to be able to see them.

One son is secretly planning to propose on Christmas Eve. A couple is trying right now to get pregnant again, and she always gets nauseous. They don’t want to be sick and squeeze into a little bed in a little cabin. But how do we tell the big family that seven of the 25 possibles don’t want to go?

— The Wet Blankets, Brandon

Dear Wet Blankets: You must say it now, at the earliest possible moment, and make it clear it is not going to happen this year. You don’t tell about the pregnancy hopes or the proposal or even the fact your family just wants to be home together.

As the mom and dad of this big family, you just say, “Great idea, you guys go and have a ball on the ocean, but we don’t want to go at this time.” Let them guess why, but don’t give a list of reasons they will try to dispute.

Have fun in the snow and look at this as an option, not a pressure. Treat it that way and don’t feel guilty because you don’t want the option of doing it.

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.

Maureen Scurfield
Advice columnist

Maureen Scurfield writes the Miss Lonelyhearts advice column.

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