Captivating cabin crooner could be singing your song

Opinion

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This article was published 10/08/2024 (419 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: I was crashing through the bush at the lake on a walk after lunch, when I heard a guy singing opera. At first I laughed, but then I sat down on a log and started listening.

I didn’t want to disturb him, as it was a really passionate song and quite beautiful. I even recognized the song. When he stopped, I wanted to clap, but then I thought I might embarrass him. I waited and snuck back down the path I had come out on and went back to my cabin — wondering what he looked like.

Later, I asked the clerk at the store if she knew about him and she said she did since he came to the store regularly. She said he was at the lake for the summer and she believed he was alone.

I’m here for another month, too, and I so want to meet him. How can I find him, other than camping out in the store every day and looking obvious?

— Obsessed With Singing, Whiteshell

Dear Obsessed: An opera singer lives to entertain and you can bet this crooner is well aware people can hear his big voice when he’s singing outdoors. So you needn’t be coy about noticing it.

Here’s a three-shot plan to find him. First, retrace your steps through the bush at about the same time of day to the spot where you heard him sing in case he has a daily practices routine.

If he’s not there, hit up a couple cabins nearby, and say: “Hello, I heard some great singing near here. Do you know who it was?”

Finally, there’s always a chance to meet him shopping at the store. Everybody needs something delicious in their lives.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I came home late at night recently from yet another business trip, and my wife’s car was not in the driveway. When I went into the house, I immediately saw things missing from the walls — like all her family photos. I ran into the bedroom, and all my wife’s clothes were also gone from the closet and drawers.

She didn’t leave a note, but I know what happened. Before my trip, she swore she would leave me if I continued to leave her all alone for weeks at a time. She was sobbing, and said she couldn’t take the loneliness anymore and that it was driving her crazy. She said she was depressed and cried all the time when I was gone.

I thought it was another manipulation and she was just exaggerating again. I actually thought the very generous monthly allowance from me, and the fact she doesn’t have to work, would make up for my being away.

Plus, she has family living in the city that she could always go and visit.

So, I drove to her parents’ house and sure enough her car was there.

I went up and banged on the door loudly. Her father opened it, and stood there barring my entrance. He roared in my face about my leaving his daughter alone all the time. He said she was staying with them and they would take care of here and love her. He told me I wouldn’t see her again.

I begged him to just let me talk to her, and he said, “Go away, or I will call the police to take you away, or my family will take care of you.”

Knowing her family, I took the threat as real.

My wife won’t even answer my calls to her phone. I emailed her a long letter expressing my sorrow, regret and love, and she didn’t reply.

Now what?

I can’t say I’ll give up the job I worked so many years to get. How could she ask me to do that? She knows better.

— Left Over My Job? Westwood

Dear Left: This woman left you because she didn’t have a real marriage with you and she was dying inside. She needs a different type of husband — one who has the same feelings and priorities as her own family.

You say you can’t give up your dream job no matter how much your wife is suffering from an absent partner. So, your business priority is cold and foreign to her. You two have conflicting ways of thinking and behaving when it comes to work, family and marriage.

Yes, you were no doubt attracted to this warm woman and you enjoyed her loving personality, but you are still set up mentally to keep starving her of affection. That’s enough to set a loving parent off.

So, let’s talk about the degree of anger you face with her father and other family members. Because you haven’t had children yet, you have no idea of the passionate anger parents feel when someone has taken their child out of the home and then neglected and deeply hurt them.

Your best move now is to give up harassing your soon-to-be ex wife and her family (now a unit again) who don’t want you anywhere near them.

See your lawyer and get good advice as to the upcoming divorce, and let this family go without a fight, as you will most certainly lose. You don’t need this kind of partner. You need a cool, business-minded mate, just like yourself.

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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