Boredom may be best gambit for smooth split

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This article was published 27/10/2020 (2167 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I’m in Grade 12 and want to break up with my girlfriend but I don’t want to lose her mother, who has been more of a parent to me than my own.

My girlfriend (I hate to say this) is a goof like her dad. He’s a daily beer drinker and pot smoker who lacks ambition. He refers to me as “buddy” and he doesn’t seem much more mature than a guy in his early 20s.

But his wife is the greatest! They don’t make moms any better. With her counsel I feel really good about myself, and she has helped me put together an education plan and a way to put the money together for the training I’ll need.

But what about her daughter? I have outgrown her, and need to do something soon. — Ready to Move On, Fort Garry

Dear Ready: There are bad break-ups and not-so-bad ones. Rather than shock your girlfriend, you might start moving away gradually with less contact and more of a friend-like demeanour.

Bore her to death! Talk more about the training you will be going for, spend time writing applications for schools and funding. Encourage her to see her friends. Study hard, look into scholarship possibilities, get serious and become a drag to date.

When you finally break up or, better still, she breaks up with you, it won’t be such a big thing.

That is, unless she’s madly in love with you, in which case it will be a mess, no matter how do it, and you’ll just need to pray she finds a new guy in a hurry.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I was very much in love with my first boyfriend from my small town in Manitoba. We went out together for four years — all through high school.

But I wanted to see what else life could offer me, so I decided to move to a city in Ontario for university.

He was so broken up over my leaving that he never responded to any letters or phone calls. It was like he was dead!

My brother, who knows him well, said he’d written me off as a lost cause when I took that plane to Toronto. On trips home for Christmas, I never ran into him, or if I did he must have ducked into a back room.

Over eight years I got married, but I’m recently divorced. It was peaceful enough, I guess. Both of us wanted out, and he already had a new girlfriend.

I got myself transferred back to Winnipeg, still with my company.

Last night I found myself really wishing my first love was my husband, and that we had babies together. He didn’t marry anyone, oddly enough. I think he’d have been a catch for any girl.

I want to see him when I’m home this Christmas, but I am afraid of rejection. He has his own house in town now, my brother tells me, and he thinks my ex isn’t seeing anybody.

Should I just go to his door and take my chances? Dive right in? I may have to push my way through that door, with the way he acts. — Determined to See Him! Downtown Winnipeg

Dear Determined: He may open the door a crack and say snidely, “Look what the cat dragged in!” or, simply, “What the heck do you want?” So you have to be prepared.

You can’t afford to say something lame, or off-the-cuff, or anything that sounds like idle curiosity-seeking, like wondering how your ex is getting along without you.

So, what does that leave you for entry lines? Maybe try a little humour, “Hi. I’m the ghost from Christmas past. Can I come in for 10 minutes? I have a message for you.”

If he lets you come in, you might say “I can’t stop thinking about you lately,” because that’s true. If any readers have a better entry line to suggest, please write in.

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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