Don’t butt in to new neighbours’ intimate affairs

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/09/2022 (1445 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: First of all, I’m not a weirdo neighbour. I mind my own business. However, I heard loud laughing and then quieter giggles and then music turned up, when I was recently working in my garden on a big fall clean-up. It was right after school hours.

Naturally I was curious. I was able to peek through a hole in the wood fence between our two properties. A while later I saw the teenage daughter of my new neighbour with a young guy, coming out of her parents’ fancy gazebo all wrapped around one another. Anything could have happened in that gazebo!

Should I be a responsible neighbour, and report this to the girl’s parents? I don’t actually know them, but if my daughter had done that at her age, I’d have wanted to hear about it, so I could put a stop to it before she got pregnant.

— Concerned Witness, North Kildonan

Dear Concerned: The point is you don’t know these parents and you don’t know their daughter, either. Times have changed and a lot of young people are wiser about the many methods of birth control — including “not-exactly-doing-it” which didn’t work so well when we were young. And, for all you know, these two kids may just be big buddies fooling around a little.

It’s time to pick up your rake, and tend to the front lawn. Next time you come out to work on the back part of your property, bring your own tunes and enjoy them. This is really not your problem to worry about.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I went to a gathering of old friends for the first time since COVID’s hiding-away days. About 40 minutes into the party, one woman started to cough a lot. No one said anything, and she wasn’t wearing a mask. The hostess appeared and guided the woman right into a bedroom. I didn’t see the coughing woman after that; I guess she went home.

My boyfriend and I decided to stay, and there were no more incidents. Still, we were nervous. The crazy thing is we all used to wear masks out of social pressure — nobody trusted anybody. Now we feel like we shouldn’t show up masked when invited to a friend’s place because it’ll look like we don’t trust them.

Our only choice seems to be to refuse all invitations, but we are so tired of doing that after two years. What should we do?

— Confusing Mask Dance, Westwood

Dear Mask Dance: It makes perfect sense to avoid “super-spreader” events where hundreds, even thousands of strangers are getting together, and many don’t care about other people’s health.

If you do go out to those big events, just mask up as you had been doing, and don’t worry for a moment about what strangers think of you.

Friends and relatives are different. If you do go to an event like a family dinner, you might not want to mask up until you’ve entered and checked it out. Or, you might take the mask out of your pocket and put it on the minute you see or hear someone hacking or sneezing, though it could be a little late by then.

If it’s nice fall weather, you could opt for a lawn chair outside in the sunshine or by a fire after sundown.

Some thoughtful hosts even provide a bowl of masks at the door in case people want them right away, or feel the need later on.

That’s the kind of host you want to be as you amp up your social life. People might not remark on it, but they notice.

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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