Your own merriment the best retort to sisterly slight

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This article was published 17/12/2022 (1387 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: Christmas is coming, and my sister has started dating my ex. Talk about a kick in the face!

I just found out she’s invited the disgusting “reformed” drunk to our big family dinner. She always wanted everything I had, and now she has him. I just spoke to my mother, and told her to “un-invite” him, if she wants me to come. She said “what’s done is done” and changed the subject. I kept begging, but she wouldn’t relent.

It’s not fair to spoil my Christmas by having to look at him at the table. My mother said, “It’s about time you got over him, and you and your sister need to stop competing.”

But it’s my Christmas, with my family — not his! He has his nerve finding his way back into our big family again.

I hear from my big-mouth cousin that he’s even better-looking, now that he’s stopped drinking. He has that young-Elvis look. I saw that new Elvis movie this fall, and then felt upset for a week. How can I go to this dinner and not feel sicker?

— Furious Sister, eastern Manitoba

Dear Furious: Bring a date to dinner and even things up. It can be a platonic male friend, if you’re not dating anyone, but ask him if you two can pretend that things have heated up between you, and that he’s your romantic date.

Also, talk to your mom seriously about helping a little ahead of time. The least she can do is seat you two “couples” at opposite ends of the table.

Give your ex and your sister a civil “Merry Christmas greeting” as you pass by, but little else need be said.

There’s a chance this reformed boyfriend of yours is using your sister to see you again, and will dump her if he can make you jealous and win you back. Or, he may actually care about her. Either way, he picked a bad family to go shopping in for a new woman, and he knows it.

You need to get over him because he’s still bad news. With this move, he seems quite OK with causing hurt when it suits him, but now he can’t blame it on the booze.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I could not disagree more with this so-called “Worried Great-Grandmother” who says the youth of today are “going to hell in a hand-basket.” This comes off as just one more opportunity to point the finger at the youth of today.

Thank you at least, for acknowledging every generation experiences frustration or anger toward the state of the world. But let me take the time to remind this great-grandmother that today’s realities are a result of yesterday’s choices. They were choices made by grown adults during an era this worried grandmother seems to hold near and dear.

Whether or not “electronic devices” have any bearing on young people “worrying about their own money and doing things for themselves,” I’m not sure. What I am sure of, is people in their 20s, 30s and even 40s, are facing unprecedented inflation (seen in the grocery stores, at the pumps and everywhere else), as well as record-high student debt, and the constant fight to make a decent wage.

If not worrying about themselves, who else is worrying about young people? Certainly not politicians or older generations. If the so-called “generation of love and peace“ truly wants to see people care about their neighbours and desire good things for one another, that starts with the individual.

Let she who is without sin cast the first stone, as the younger generations clean up the mess left behind by baby boomers and generation X.

— Stewing Survivor, Transcona

Dear Stewing: Older people who don’t have close contact with grandchildren and great-grandchildren, sometimes lose touch with what the younger generations are facing.

“Worried Great-Grandmother,” who mourns the loss of the peace-and-love generation of the ’60s and ’70s, seems to have forgotten the accusations from her own elders, way-back-when. The teens and young adults of her era were deemed by many of their parents and grandparents to be a bunch of irresponsible hippies, yapping about peace, drugs and rock ’n’ roll.

It seems the sneering of older generations comes when they’re no longer involved in the struggle to get educated or trained, make a living and raise their children. Many of them are past the realities of those difficult days, and have conveniently forgotten them.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I went to a Christmas party and literally ran into a beautiful woman in a short red dress and spilled my full drink down the front of it. She was soaked, so she ended up calling a cab and going home very early.

I still feel like such a jerk! I found out her name and where she works, and would like to send her flowers and a little note of apology. Is that too much?

I’d like her to be able to call me, but I don’t want to put my phone number on the note, and look like a jerk who’s after a date — although I guess I am. Please advise.

— Flowers or Not? Downtown

Dear Flowers: Send her beautiful flowers and apologize for ruining her night at the Christmas party. On the accompanying card, ask if you can please pay for dry-cleaning her dress, and include all your contact info.

If she calls you, try to make arrangements about cleaning the dress. She will probably politely refuse, but in that case you can quickly say, “At least, may I take you out for lunch?” You mustn’t say “out for dinner,” as that sounds like you’re using the apology to get a real date, which you are, but you’re trying to be subtle about it. Good luck!

Please send your questions 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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