Dinner-date leftovers in bad taste

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This article was published 03/03/2020 (2334 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: My new boyfriend, who is well-paid but tight with his money, invited me over for dinner. He had the nerve to take leftovers — some from takeout cartons — and microwave plates of them to serve me for dinner. Wine came from the heels of two old bottles.

Miss L., this man makes a a six-figure income and continually brags about the wonderful places he eats out for lunch and what he orders — on company money, of course. He’s very good-looking and I was taken by his affection and crazy sense of humour, but this food thing really bothers me. What do you think?

— Yech! St. Vital

Dear Yech: Most guys know enough to cook fresh food — not leftovers — for the lady they are entertaining and to and open a new bottle of wine. This guy is showing you he lacks class and doesn’t understand or respect his dates enough to cook a nice dinner for them. This is the kind of food couples might eat after an impromptu, post-bar overnight. They just forage in the fridge and do the best they can.

Before you say bye-bye, it’d be interesting to find out how this guy was raised. Even if he came from a household with a shortage of money and food, you think he’d know better than to serve you leftovers.

He’s familiar with nice restaurants, so this behaviour raises a lot of questions. Ask them nicely, but ask them. He may have divided the world into “us” and “them.” When he’s out for lunch he’s with “them” (those wealthy guys), but when he’s with you, he treats you like “just us,” the way he’d treat his little sister.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: There is a guy at my work who’s racist all the time. It only takes half an hour into the work day before he starts up. It’s not toward my race in particular, but it’s gross. You can tell he’s more than comfortable with it.

I’d like to tell him off, but the last time I confronted him and went to management they just told me “we need you guys to get along.” Passing the buck! I went a year without a job before this one, and I don’t want to go through that again. What sort of moves can I make here to get it to stop?

— Disgusted, West Winnipeg

Dear Disgusted: It’d be best if more than one of you complained, so they could find out his remarks are like a spray of bullets, and this is not just a personality conflict between you two. Then a few of you hike down to human resources and ask for some ways to deal with him, and give HR quotes of the ugly things he says.

He’s not doing the morale of the office any good, and morale is part of what HR is about. You have already tried management, and that didn’t do anything.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I left my husband’s keys in his “custom” truck and it got stolen last summer. He has been mad at me ever since. I thought it would get better eventually, but nothing seems to have improved. He’s cold as a freezer to me since and we haven’t had sex for a long time.

He’s mad because he spent 10 years (as I have been reminded many times) rebuilding that thing with his “own blood, sweat and tears.” It also doesn’t help that it was his dad’s truck originally, and he “brought it back to life.”

How can I get it through his head I am sorry and we should move on? I have apologized a thousand times by now and it all seems pointless. Please help!

— Had It With His Punishment, Winnipeg

Dear Punishment: Stop taking these verbal beatings! Half a year has gone by. By not accepting your apology, he gets to vent his grief and feel like he deserves to be able to do whatever he wants in retaliation. You have to stop playing the apologetic victim and start showing him the harm he’s doing to your marriage, your sex lives and your feelings of warmth towards him.

Let him know you both have options in this one life we are given, and that you are going to see a marriage counsellor — alone if necessary. Let him know things have gotten very serious on your side too. If he doesn’t care about seeing your warm marriage return and he doesn’t care about the sex, I’d wonder if he had options elsewhere and if that’s why he doesn’t care about intimacy with you.

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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