Change your routine to avoid pest from past

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This article was published 01/02/2020 (2399 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: Do I feel like a jerk! I met this great new girl at the casino and we were getting along like wildfire — same sense of humour, neither being big drinkers or gamblers — just having a few drinks and enjoying getting to know each other. 

Then, who staggers up but an ex-girlfriend, and she turned on my new lady friend and told her to “get lost” and that I “belonged” to her.  

I haven’t had anything to do with her in more than a year! The new lady just shrugged and looked at me, like I had suddenly gone way down in her estimation. 

Who could blame her? This drunk woman was hanging into my arm saying stuff like, “We were really good together” and this lovely new woman was making a beeline for the door. I didn’t even get her number. 

How can I get rid of this pest from my past? She knows I go there Saturday nights for a bit of gambling. When she finds me, she’ll cause a little scene, sometimes crying, sometimes laughing hysterically, and she makes it embarrassing for me. What should I do?

— Furious and Frustrated, Winnipeg

Dear Frustrated: This embarrassing old ex isn’t going anywhere else, so you need to change your Saturday hangout, or this scene will continue to repeat itself. There’s more than one casino in town if that’s your pleasure, but she may look for you elsewhere, once she notes you have left your regular one “for good.”

Luckily, Winnipeg is also full of bars with great live music. She’s less likely to go searching for you at those places. If you do run into her, just say hello and move away from her with purpose. Get right out of the building so she gets the message you will not interact at all.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I fell in love with a guy in the hotel business in Mexico, and after a whole month, spending almost every night with him, I came home convinced it might be the real thing. I got nothing but encouragement from him.  He wants me to come live there too, and he says he could easily get me a job in the tourist business, though not in his hotel, for obvious reasons.

I had a month off, as I was test-driving early retirement from my “caring profession” in Canada. It has taken a lot out of me in 30 years, though I got started young. I don’t want to get a similar job there; I want to explore my social and artistic side.

On our last night together, he asked me how serious I was about being serious and coming to live with him. It wasn’t exactly a marriage proposal, but he’s not the type to joke about things like that. I said, “I don’t know — I’ll have to think about it all,” and that was NOT the answer he wanted to hear. He looked very sombre.

I’ve heard less and less from my Mexican love since then and last night on the phone he said, “Since you’re not sure  about me, I guess we should both continue being social.” What is that supposed to mean? 

— Feel Some Serious Tears Coming, Winnipeg

Dear Serious Tears: Long-distance marriage relationships require overwhelming feelings of love, passion, caring and compatibility, plus the extra fuel of regular travel to keep getting together. That means he comes to Canada and you meet his family and keep it accelerating.

Your hotelier may meet a lot of other women who find him pleasing. Now you’ve gone away to Canada, with no solid plan, he’s lonely and you have not mentioned a plan to go back with two or three months of the travel season left. 

So now he’s a man on a starvation diet, and he’s mildly suggesting you both start dating again. That’s why he asked you outright how serious you are about him before you even left. You may not have been the first woman to have a romance with him and leave him, but he felt a lot for you. Your hedging and saying, “I don’t know,” didn’t cut it. He’s hurt, and no doubt wondering why he’d wait for a woman who thinks he’s great, but maybe not good enough to give up Canada and live with him permanently. 

Unfortunately, a lot of women come along in that hotel business and it’s more fun for them to have a big romance when they are there, than to be single the whole time. Most often they fade out from the guy’s life when they get back up north.  

So wind it forward in your head and try to picture yourself living there, working there, and being married to him. If you can’t picture that, it’d be kindest to set both of you free now.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I’d like to phone this guy up I met at curling and ask him out. I don’t want to look too forward, so I’m not sure how to do it. Please help me, as he’s the first guy I have been interested in for five long years and he’s available, as far as I know! What should I say?

— Curling Crush, Winnipeg Outskirts

Dear Curling Crush: If he doesn’t really know you well, talk to him at the next curling event, and make sure he knows both your names, and a little about you. Then either ask him out for coffee, to meet you at The Forks, or you could tell him you’d like to phone him about going out together somewhere. I’d vote for asking him discreetly face-to-face, as it take less guts than trying to get contact info from him and then building up your courage to actually phone him.

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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