Tread lightly when it comes to floating your fetish

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This article was published 26/09/2022 (1145 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: I’m in love with women’s sweet, feminine feet. I just told my new girlfriend and she didn’t react at first. But then later, when I tried to demonstrate, she knee-jerk kicked me in the face, and told me I was weird. She ordered me to get out of her apartment!

My last girlfriend loved it. We just didn’t mesh in other ways.

My fetish is harmless and can be enjoyable for the person on the receiving end. Unfortunately, my new girlfriend treated me like I was disgusting. I felt humiliated, and then angry. My question is, how can I avoid being hurt and humiliated when I want to introduce my harmless little fetish?

— Hurt and Embarrassed, West End

Dear Hurt and Embarrassed: Your fetish needs a verbal introduction in an intimate but non-sexual setting, like an evening chat where reactions are totally private.

You could work up to it when dating someone by talking about the fetish in general — testing the waters to see if you should ask to go further.

While it’s true your fetish does not cause physical harm to the receiver, it can disgust and upset some people, especially if it’s an unannounced move and it puts you in a position for a painful boot to the noggin.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: This is in response to “Looking for the Right Words,” the woman who want to leave her marriage to an “all-round good guy husband” for a female lover. She says he “can’t compete?”

You suggested she explain the evolution of her feelings, and leave the relationship if she must. I say, whatever happened to “marriage and commitment” and “you’re as good as your word?”

Unless there’s infidelity and abuse, working through challenges in a relationship has great rewards. You can’t imagine all the ripple effects of tearing a family apart and how it will hurt or damage your loved ones.

It’s dangerous to let your feelings rule you. When you have integrity, you can look at yourself in the mirror.

— Not Impressed, Manitoba

Dear Not Impressed: When you are a bisexual woman married to a man and find yourself in love with a specific woman, it’s not as easy as working out any annoying personal differences.

This is a sexual and emotional divergence. Her husband can try to be a better man, but he is never going to be a woman, and she has already found the woman she wants — and is half way out the door.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: You may wish to direct “Stuttering Girlfriend” to Toastmasters (a public speaking club). I’ve been a Toastmaster for more than 20 years and during that time I have seen several stutterers shed their stutters.

Have her check the toastmasters.org website for clubs in her area.

— Seen Successes There, Winnipeg

Dear Seen Successes: Toastmasters is just getting into full swing this fall and could perhaps help this young woman out. Even if it doesn’t aid her right away, she will find help and understanding from the members.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I want to call my old boyfriend and see how he’s doing, now that I know he’s doing well. I want to congratulate him on following my suggestion and going back to university this fall. I broke up with him because he was going nowhere. It wasn’t a very nice breakup and the epithet “big loser” was used by me.

I’m just so happy I spurred him on to greater things in is life. Should I take the chance of calling him?

— Pleased Ex-Girlfriend, Tuxedo

Dear Pleased: He doesn’t need your phoning him to say “I told you so.” You can be quietly pleased and watch his progress from afar. If he graduates with a diploma or two, just be privately happy for him and don’t try to take any credit.

When you dump a person and kick them in the pride for being “a loser,” the only thing that could possibly be done in the future when they do well, is to say: “I’m sorry I was so rude, and I’m happy for you.”

lovecoach@hotmail.com

Maureen Scurfield
Advice columnist

Maureen Scurfield writes the Miss Lonelyhearts advice column.

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