Time to get beyond surface resemblance to old flame

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 30/03/2024 (921 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: I’m 26 and well-educated, but I have a strange problem. I already have a serious boyfriend I’m expected to marry, but a new guy has come into my workplace. He looks exactly like a grown-up version of a boy I loved to distraction in school — from Grade 1 to Grade 9. Then he and his family moved to Ontario. I cried myself to sleep for a month.

This new guy at work is also like my old-school love in interests, goofy sense of humour and deep love for animals. He’s like a ghost from the past, returned.

Mostly, though, it’s the similar features and appearance that freak me out. I know looks and past loves shouldn’t mean so much, but I am so turned on by this type of look — tall, dark brown eyes, straight black hair, stubborn chin and light-brown skin.

A group from my work often goes to a bar when the day is done and I have been getting to know this new guy. I know he likes me, but am I just being a silly romantic and confusing him with my childhood love?

I’ve read about the imprinting of ducklings on a certain look — usually the look of their mother — and how they follow her around endlessly. I wonder if I imprinted like a duckling on my childhood boyfriend and if so, am I doing it now and do I need my head examined?

— Crushing on Twin, downtown Winnipeg

Dear Crushing: Imprinting can happen in a romantic context with humans, too. Some people date similar-looking people repeatedly and in many cases, they look much like a favourite parent.

It’s not a “sick” thing to do, and it doesn’t really matter, as long as the person you’re attracted to is also a good match for your personality. That’s what you’re about to find out.

And as for what to do about your current boyfriend, you have to give some serious thought about whether he is the one you really want to marry.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I came home from a holiday in Mexico with a bunch of guys on a sports team I play for to find out my world at home had completely shifted. My girlfriend had packed her bags and moved out. She left me a note on the kitchen table and it was so rude I can’t quote any of it.

She must have been drunk when she wrote it. She accused me of cheating on her, even though she had no proof — it was all in her imagination.

She is already living in a house with a bunch of university students of both sexes and she has forbidden me to contact her there.

This doesn’t seem real. I need to talk to her face-to-face and work this out, but she won’t talk to me. What can I do?

— Furious and Disgusted, Wolseley

Dear Furious: It’s time you accepted that going off for a holiday with “the boys” was the final wrong move as far as this young woman was concerned. So, she has left in a huff and moved on.

Adults have to accept other people’s choices and then make some new ones of their own. This girlfriend had to accept your single guys’ trip to Mexico, and you had to accept her single gal move to a new abode.

If someone has told you not to come near them and you still show up at their door, they can call the police. So, if you really need to express yourself, write your ex a letter or send a message, but do not trust she’ll keep it to herself. Don’t say anything rude you don’t wouldn’t want anyone else to see (including a lawyer), even though her goodbye note to you was a nasty one.

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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