Best to take things slowly with surprise sister

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: I met my birth sister recently at a hockey rink after people kept pointing out this player who looked just like me, only taller.

Part way through the game, somebody brought her over to meet me. She looked identical, even down to my odd-coloured eyes.

She just looked at me long and hard and said, “You must be … my sister?”

I explained that her biological mom gave birth to a me as a young teenager and then I was adopted, just like she was.

Now we have seen each other a half-dozen times and I really like her. I want to treat her like who she is — my sister.

But would that be rude to the mother who brought her up, and to my adoptive mother, too? Please help.

— All Mixed Up, rural Manitoba

Dear Mixed Up: It’s up to you two sisters to decide how close you want everybody to be and how much liberty there is to do that.

You may just want to have short visits after hockey games and talk by phone at first.

You might also want to consider some counselling to get a better idea how close you really want to become with your sister.

Then there’s incorporating the adoptive moms, who must be feeling a bit apprehensive at this point.

The main thing is to take your time to work through your expectations and those of the others involved here. Don’t feel you need to rush headlong into things right away.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I have a New Year’s Eve party to go to, and it’s a scary character costume party. Last year, I ducked out the door at 11:55 p.m. to avoid the midnight kissing thing, but on the steps I met a new guy looking for his lost boot.

I was tipsy and volunteered to kiss him for luck. He loved that. Ten seconds after a long smooch, we found his boot. Must have been that magical kiss. We’ve been dating ever since. Did fate bring us together? I think so now.

— Lady Luck, St. Vital

Dear Lady Luck: Just enjoy the idea it may be fate that brought you two together, and don’t ruin things by questioning it too much since you both won on the night you met.

Your lucky kiss led the two of you to connect — and you even found his lost boot. You’ve both been “getting lucky” together, ever since. It can’t get much better than that when starting out.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I always write my New Year’s resolutions a few days ahead and exchange them with my wife. We both have a laugh and then tape them on the wall over our workroom desks on Jan. 1.

We turn it into a sort of competition, and the one of us who breaks all of our resolutions first has to take the other out for dinner.

I guess it really isn’t so much about the resolutions for us — it’s more of a reason to inject some playfulness into a cold time of year.

Plus, we both really end up winning by going for a romantic dinner together and then enjoying the fun and games afterward.

We also strike up these sort of personal challenges at other times of year (with similar outcomes) and we play board games and cards with a flirty competitiveness pretty regularly.

Is life just a game to us? Are we unserious and kind of nuts?

— Goofy Pair, Birds Hill

Dear Goofy Pair: Nope, you’re not nuts. Too many people are poorly matched in terms of risk-taking and having fun. Then they try to tame the wild spirit inside their partner when it was that very characteristic that first attracted them.

You two share the same off-the-wall sense of humour and cheeky competitive spirit — and that spells “relaxed, compatible and up for a physical and mental challenge.” So hang onto each other.

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.

   Read full biography