Maureen Scurfield

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: I came home early two nights ago, followed the suspicious noises I heard when I entered, and caught my sister with my new best buddy from my hockey team. I flicked on the bright overhead lights. They were in the old TV room in the basement, quickly adjusting their clothes. My sister was holding a pillow in front of herself.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: The love is not coming back into my marriage, now that my wife’s affair is over. She’s just come back home to live with me and our teenage kids. She’s buzzing around like it’s a new start and says she’s “feeling good about re-dedicating her whole self to me, the kids and the marriage.”

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: My recent ex-husband left a horrible letter in my mailbox. He called me filthy names for starting to date someone he knows right after our divorce.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: I was alone at my new girlfriend’s house recently and I did a little snooping when she went out shopping. I found a stash of men’s clothes in the back of her closet, including a few tailored suits. They were certainly not mine, I can tell you that! I’m three sizes bigger.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: I met my boyfriend at a St. Patrick’s Day pub party three years ago. He was looking pretty silly with his hat on crooked when I got there. I sipped green beer while I listened in and assessed him: he was cute, smart, funny — and three sheets to the wind! Later I drove him home and he sang me Irish songs all the way.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: My most recent ex is a lesbian and I’m bisexual. She lives in the same neighbourhood as I do. I’ve broken up with her and I’m not responding to her online or on my phone. I haven’t blocked her entirely as she’s harmless, but I’m sick of her shadowing me.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: My mother came back from her boyfriend’s house in the country recently and announced she is pregnant with his child. This baby will be almost 20 years younger than its brother and sister. I am shocked, and so is my brother.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: I’ve been sleeping beside my husband, without sex or even affection, for months now. This man, who was so hungry for sex all our marriage, now acts like he has no appetite for it. I asked him last night — after he refused my attempts to make love with him again — if there was something wrong, and if he wasn’t feeling well sexually.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: I literally ran into my old high school boyfriend (my big love from way back) in the hardware store recently. I crashed my cart into the front of his. He laughed when he saw me, and then grabbed me and kissed my forehead! For the two years we dated — grades 11 and 12 — he used to always do that when we’d first meet up, because he’s so tall and I’m so short.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: My girlfriend saw the Elvis movie with her girlfriends, and now she wants me to get my long hair cut into a “pompadour” like his. She says lots of guys are doing it now. Oh yeah? I haven’t seen one in Winnipeg yet. I also refuse to wear eye makeup which she has asked me to do when we go out to bars. She has volunteered to put it on for me.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: I used to be married to a man, but now — much later on — I’m married to a woman. It isn’t turning out to be any easier. I’m just realizing I married the same type of human being. Even though the physical sex with my female partner is more to my liking, she is turning out to be just as pushy and dominant as my ex-husband.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: My wife asked me if it’d be alright with me if she went to see a movie near her office with somebody from out of town who’s helping with the special project she’s working on.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: My wife recently said a lot of older people get out-of-shape, and start looking more like the opposite sex. I was shocked but acted cool and pressed her for more detail. Dumb move! She said I have a “softer, rounder” body now, than when we met. Then, when she saw the shock on my face, she quickly said when we met in college, I was “broad at the shoulder and narrow at the hip” like a line from the old song Big John. She said she felt like I was her “protector.”

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: My husband works in an arts-related field where he’s around beautiful, ambitious women. When I was younger it didn’t bother me, because I was aware I was good-looking myself. But now I’m older, and the women he works with seem younger and younger. There’s an endless supply of them in his type of work. With him being away on projects a lot, and us getting older and having less sex, I worry his eyes are wandering.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: My hidden love is my close work partner, and we’re both unfortunately married to other people. We have been loving each other for many months now. A few weeks ago this sweet woman revealed to me she’s ready to leave her husband. She kept looking at me for a response, once she said it. I knew she was waiting for me to say I’d also leave my wife, to be with her. But just I couldn’t.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: My boss is a lovable nerd — not socially connected at all. He absolutely adores me, and trots around behind me at work, like a puppy. He’s in his 40s and still a bachelor. He’s very well-to-do, and would love to be married and have a family.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: My new girlfriend treats people around her like she’s the Queen doling out her favours. She has a reputation I’m well aware of — treating men like servants. It seems I’m the exception these days. In fact, she treats me like gold, and I’ve never had it so good, in bed or out.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: I grocery shop in the same store at the same time every week, for a good reason. I really like this guy who’s always there every Friday after work. It seems we’re both creatures of habit and like the same foods, particularly the chocolate cookies in the baking section.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: My husband and I are in serious trouble involving sleeping together. The trouble is I can’t sleep comfortably with him, because he wants all the pillows, plus he’s a big, tall man who lurches around in our double bed in his sleep.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: Six hours after I broke up with my girlfriend, she’d already packed her bags and left my apartment to go back home. I panicked when I came home to an empty place and, big suck that I am, I phoned to beg her to come back.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: I have a girlfriend who collects homeless dogs. She works at her place on a beautiful treed acreage. At first, I felt she loved me, her new man, 100 per cent. But each time she adds a new animal to the pack, she has less time for me, and I feel like she loves me less.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: There’s this overweight girl in my Grade 11 class with a big chest, beautiful hair and green eyes that smoulder. When she talks, it’s kind of a purr — but a natural low voice, not put on. People shut up to hear her! All the guys hang around her like tomcats. They just want her to look back at them and say something — anything.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: I have a new neighbour in his 20s, whose bathroom and big bedroom window is across from one side of my old house. He moved in about a month ago. He comes home most at around 6 p.m., when it’s getting dark out, and he turns on all the lights as soon as he gets in. Then he strips down, and walks around the house with his big dog following him.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: I lost my female friend I’d been engaged to for many years. Last spring, I finally gave in to pressure from family and friends and bought her a diamond ring — and I paid a lot for it. I still made no move to marry her, though. I was previously married and divorced, before dating her, so I felt I’d “been there, done that.”