Best for all involved if you take biz elsewhere

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 11/05/2024 (861 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: I got kicked out of a store for being a suspected thief! I didn’t do anything, and they soon found out I didn’t have anything hidden on me. I was rightfully furious.

I called the store management back when I got home, and demanded an apology and a $100 gift card. The woman who answered from the business’s security department, just laughed and said, ”Oh, we’ve seen you here before.” So what?

Now I will never go back there and give them any more of my business, which had been considerable, because I live nearby. Is there anything else I can do? — Furious Shopper, Fort Garry

Dear Furious: When you called and demanded a makeup gift of $100, the store security tagged you as a person trying to play a con game with them.

They didn’t banish your from the store, so you can go back when you need something, but it’s now time to stop trying to get something out of them. It only makes you look like someone they need to keep watching.

Finding a different store to patronize would make everybody happier, including you.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I just found out my new boyfriend is a distant cousin of mine, like third or fourth. I feel kind of creeped-out by this fact, but he thinks it’s a laugh!

Not that I’m thinking of marriage at this point, but can cousins legally get married in Canada?

— Curious to Know, Charleswood

Dear Curious: First cousins are allowed to marry all across Canada. In the United States, second cousins are allowed to marry in all states, but first cousins, who are closer blood relations, are only allowed to wed in about half the states.

As for your dating situation, if it feels weird to you, don’t do it! You won’t be able to relax and totally enjoy the relationship.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: My man gets mad about the stupidest stuff. Recently he was going off about this dumb old debate online everybody knows about, where women are saying they’re rather encounter a man alone in the woods, than a bear.

But the men who saw it and chimed in on the issue were territorial and chose the bear as less of a problem. Why? Because it wouldn’t run off with their woman (sexually), despite the fact it’d be far more likely to kill her.

My boyfriend spent a whole evening arguing with strangers over this stupid old topic! What I really want to know is how do I get my guy to stop throwing fuel on the fire and engaging with this kind of crap online?

He’s wasting so much of our precious time together arguing with people he doesn’t even know, about situations that aren’t real. What can I do?

— Frustrated Girlfriend, Tuxedo

Dear Frustrated: Take-the-bait arguments like this old one accelerated in popularity when COVID created a situation where millions of people were hiding at home, dying of boredom. Once they’d worn out talking with their personal friends online, they expanded to arguments with total strangers — and the questions they were fighting over, were often generated by artificial intelligence.

People jumped in without fear, opened their mouths and enjoyed saying outrageous things, because the argument wouldn’t cost them anything. They wouldn’t actually meet the people they’d engage with, and just leave the website or social media platform when they felt like it — nothing lost in terms of friendships.

To get your man to start reinvesting his time and energy into his relationship with you, be willing to trick him in a nice way. Without telling folks what you’re doing to rehabilitate him, get him out to sports games, beaches, and lunches and dinners with real friends he has ignored.

Just don’t make the mistake of telling him and other people that he’s your summer rehab project, or you may lose him.

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