Look back to old friends to beat social-media blues

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 13/04/2021 (1998 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: Before the pandemic, I felt I had the best circle of friends and a full social life. Since the pandemic, I’ve noticed the majority of my circle have become self-absorbed adults who have nothing better to do than gossip.

I understand these are unprecedented times and people are stressed, but grown-ups are acting like mean-spirited adolescents and they’re bullying people on Facebook.

It’s now happened to me. It’s one thing to disagree with someone, but it’s a whole other thing to post on Facebook private secrets that were told in total trust. These people were my real-life friends, not just social-media buddies. I could not believe the hurtful way they were striking out at one another — and then at me.

I have tried to be the peacemaker, but this has only fired them up even more.

Not all my friends are bullies, but we are all intertwined with one another and I really do not want to have anything more to do with them. I have deleted at least a dozen people on my Facebook and other social-media apps. I do feel lonely, but don’t want to engage anymore. Any advice on how to start making new friends?

— Need a Massive Changeover, Winnipeg

Dear Change: Making new friends in COVID times is difficult, but you’re still not stuck with the “friends” who turned out be nasty and mean-minded.

Looking up good old friends from school and relatives of different generations and reconnecting with them, online or by telephone, could be a much better idea. You and some siblings and cousins could form a committee for a family reunion, and have a blast catching up. Family trees work in nicely with this type of project, and some relatives may have already mapped out their branch of the tree.

You might also look at doing a high school reunion — they can take 18 months to two years of work to get together. I did one myself with a close friend many years ago. You’ll need a small committee of organized people who don’t mind being detectives to find all the former students, plan the event and get the invitations out.

Of course, you shouldn’t tackle that project if the people who have been mean-spirited with you and others online are old high school friends.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I had the feeling my wife was trying to “make do” with our marriage. The kids were all gone, she’s packed on weight and we have had next to no sex life.

I lift weights in the basement and run every day. I have stayed in good shape, but then I didn’t have to carry any babies, as she likes to point out.

Then, out of nowhere, she started to lose weight with an online program that looked dicey to me and she exercises with some babes on YouTube. Now I have to admit she looks better than she did before the babies.

I asked her, after we’d had a few drinks, when she thought we’d be having a sex life again and she said, “When you get off your high horse.”

What high horse? I may have made a few suggestions to her about losing some weight, for her health. Then the ball dropped. She says she overheard me call her “lumpy” to a buddy on the phone. She said, “I heard that, you disloyal creep!” and I turned 10 shades of red. Caught!

Do I still love her? I don’t even know anymore. The love and sex got buried under the extra weight and total lack of desire (on her side).

She is a good mother to the kids, but they are recently out of the nest. What do you think?

— Nowhere Man, Fort Richmond

Dear Nowhere Man: Unless you really believe your marriage is not worth saving, you need to have the difficult but sometimes healing talk with a trained relationship counsellor. If you leave abruptly, you may regret it for a long time — with unanswered questions swirling in your mind when you try to get to sleep at night.

No new woman worth her salt is going to be thrilled to start something with you if you’re emotionally messed up and still wondering about the wife you left, if you could have fixed things.

Tell your wife you’re not going anywhere until you’ve tried to work out the whole mess together, and breaking up turns out to be best idea in the end.

Send 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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