Chalk it up as festival fling and savour the memory

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This article was published 18/07/2023 (859 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: I was at the Winnipeg Folk Festival this year and met a beautiful woman I really connected with. We ended up sleeping together two nights, and spent most of the rest of the festival together. It felt like I had found someone who really liked me and wanted to be with me. She felt a bit out of my league — a few years older and comes from a wealthy family — but it didn’t feel weird or anything.

The problem is, now that we’re back home, I’ve been texting her, and she won’t respond. Should I keep trying and assume that maybe there is a problem with her phone? My buddy said she might have given me a fake number, but why sleep with me if she felt that way?

— Feeling Lonely and Disappointed, Osborne Village

Dear Lonely and Disappointed: It hurts to be someone’s “festival romance” and then be treated like you’re nothing special to them. That’s particularly hard when you live close enough to get together in real life.

Did she mention if she left someone at home and went to the festival on her own? Were you afraid to ask? Some couples don’t have the same musical interests, but one feels so strongly about an amazing festival they go off to it on their own.

People might have seen you together trekking around the festival site, but took you just for friends — musical buddies — and she was OK with that. But when this folkie got home to her regular world there may not have been room for you — a secret second and younger lover — in her daily life.

Look at it this way: She may be back home with some guy her age who doesn’t like the festival, but she may be secretly fantasizing about you in her dreams.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I’m a confident man in my early 50s, but I lost the love of my life a few years ago to cancer and I’ve been having a lot of trouble meeting someone new. The wound I have from the loss of my wife is still bad. It hurts every day, but the hurt is starting to become less overwhelming.

My well-meaning (but tiresome) kids recently suggested I try to find “a friend” to share my life with. I have plenty of dating experience from before my marriage and I built a great career. I know I’m a catch, but I recently went out to one of the summer dance concerts on Corydon Avenue to listen to music and maybe mingle a bit. Stupidly, I found myself shutting down conversations with people and missing my wife.

How do I move on? Is it even possible? I want to feel loved again, but I feel as if the love for my wife conflicts with that.

— Confident But Shy, South St. Vital

Dear Shy: Do some online searching for local support groups for survivors of deep loss. Other widows and widowers often join groups like these before getting back into fun social activities, because frankly, they aren’t feeling very social yet. They can’t easily put aside memories of the mate they lost, but participating in talks and activities with other people at different stages of recovery feels OK to them.

You could benefit from warm discussions on different topics — especially hearing about the experiences of people who are on the same up-and-down road to social reconnection as you are. With new friends by your side, you can tell your concerned family truthfully, “I have new single friends who understand, and I’m going to be all right now.” They will heave a big sigh of relief.

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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