Shared running interest a neighbourly icebreaker

Maureen Scurfield Miss Lonelyhearts
By: Maureen Scurfield Posted:

Advertisement

Advertise with us

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: I just moved into a new-to-me house this fall and the man next door is a runner, like me, according to a new neighbour on the other side of. I see him going out running before nightfall all by himself, and I want to ask if I can join him. I hate running by myself when it’s dark at night.

Read this article for free:


or

Already have an account? Log in here »

To continue reading, please subscribe:

Subscribe and receive a limited-edition Free Press branded hat or tote.

Digital Subscription

One year of digital access for only $205*

  • Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
  • Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
  • Access News Break, our award-winning app
  • Play interactive puzzles

*First annual payment billed as $205.00 + GST for one year. This annual subscription will automatically renew at $233.00 + GST every 52 weeks (10% off the regular annual price of $259.35). Offer available to new and qualified returning subscribers only. Cancel any time.

To continue reading, please subscribe:

Add Free Press access to your Brandon Sun subscription for only an additional

$1 for the first 4 weeks*

  • Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
  • Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
  • Access News Break, our award-winning app
  • Play interactive puzzles
Start now

*Your next Brandon Sun subscription payment will increase by $1.00 and you will be charged $17.95 plus GST for four weeks. After four weeks, your payment will increase to $24.95 plus GST every four weeks.

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 15/10/2025 (344 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: I just moved into a new-to-me house this fall and the man next door is a runner, like me, according to a new neighbour on the other side of. I see him going out running before nightfall all by himself, and I want to ask if I can join him. I hate running by myself when it’s dark at night.

I’m also curious about running in the snowy woods around here this winter and what footwear I’d need and if it makes sense use a headlamp. I have so many questions. Should I just knock on his door and ask, or would he think that’s silly and too forward?

— Shy But Curious, Charleswood

Dear Shy: Big deal what this guy next door thinks of your running questions! New neighbours and friends are great to meet, on any excuse. So, screw up your courage and say hello. This is how you build friendships with new people — discussing similar hobbies and curiosities about them. and talking about the people around you who’d also be good to meet.

The conversation will naturally flow with your mutual interest in running, and him filling you in on the neighbours and the quirks of the territory you now share. Try not to overthink this and just go and knock!

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: About 4 a.m. every night, our littlest boy wakes up, but does not cry. The little monkey just crawls up and over the side of his little kid’s bed, pads down the hall and jumps in with us — good old mom and dad, where it’s warm.

He goes back to sleep instantly and stays until it’s time for breakfast. So much for the great morning sex with my man.

My husband and I are getting so tired of having furtive sex when our kids aren’t around. Help us with some ideas please.

— Couple Doing Without, Fort Garry

Dear Doing Without: Some couples take a tip from teenagers who don’t dare getting caught having sex. After your littlest one is fast asleep — consider a private little sex session elsewhere in the house. Anywhere with a locked door could work— you just don’t want surprises.

Another couple recently wrote to say they had six kids and a wall-to-wall family bed made of two big mattresses. The parents then sneak off in the middle of the night to one of the unused kids’ bedrooms when they want privacy for lovemaking!

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

Maureen Scurfield
Advice columnist

Maureen Scurfield writes the Miss Lonelyhearts advice column.

   Read full biography

Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber.

Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.

Maureen Scurfield

Maureen Scurfield
Advice columnist

Maureen Scurfield writes the Miss Lonelyhearts advice column.

   Read full biography

Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber.

Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.

Related Articles

Hammer out mutual pact on referencing exes Climb out of creative rut, explore the world Flab jabs just bumps in the road to the new you Keep hubby’s job-stress worry between you and doc A bit of ‘locus-pocus’ can help ward off party hex Oversharing not the key to losing loneliness Best to quell curiosity over sister’s hot ex Time to assess what your heart really needs Seek emotional support for parental predicament

Advertisement Advertise With Us

Report Error Submit a Tip

Advertisement

Learn more about Winnipeg Free Press Advertising solutions

More Stories

MIKE DEAL / FREE PRESS Incumbent mayor, Scott Gillingham, scrums with media Tuesday afternoon, outside 1510 Main Street, a brand new 72-unit residential building developed by Inuka. Inuka is a Black-led, community-rooted nonprofit creating sustainable, affordable housing for low- to moderate-income households in Winnipeg.

Gillingham promises to make north Main revitalization a second-term priority

Joyanne Pursaga 3 minute read Preview

Gillingham promises to make north Main revitalization a second-term priority

Joyanne Pursaga 3 minute read Tuesday, Sep. 22, 2026

Scott Gillingham says he will work to “reset and renew” north Main Street, if he wins a second term as mayor.

The incumbent candidate promised Tuesday to devise a long-term plan to rejuvenate that section of the thoroughfare, noting it has recently suffered from decay.

“It has a rich history, a deep and proud history. But the last couple of years, to say it’s been underperforming would be an understatement…. So many stretches of Main Street here, I see derelict buildings, boarded-up businesses, piles of rubble after fires that sit waiting to be cleaned up,” Gillingham said.

“We can disrupt what is going on and turn the tide on north Main Street.”

Read
Tuesday, Sep. 22, 2026

Musk’s Starship flawed, but useful

Gwynne Dyer 4 minute read Saturday, May. 30, 2026

With a record of five failures and six partial successes in his Starship program, the 12th launch, on May 22, of Elon Musk’s rocket was critical to the success of the whole SpaceX enterprise. Doubts were growing, and the initial public offering was only weeks away.

The IPO, due on June 12, is expected to raise up to $80 billion for the company. Its only currently profitable sector is its telecommunications business, Starlink, but SpaceX’s long-haul potential is a near-monopoly on launches and other space services for American and other players in the burgeoning space business.

Musk does push hard at the boundaries of possibility, however, and with Starship he made two promises that are hard to keep: fully reusable spaceships that deliver 100 tonnes of payload to low earth orbit (LEO). The ‘reusable’ part of the promise is almost done; the ‘heavy lift’ part not so much, because that brings him up against the ‘rocket equation’.

That’s Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky’s classic rocket equation of 1903, which states that around 90 per cent of a rocket’s launch weight has to be fuel if you want to put it into Earth orbit. It has not yet been successfully challenged, which is why so many of Starship’s launches failed — and none has yet reached orbit.

Students and rising tuition

Jonathan Szo and Joy Chikezie 4 minute read Yesterday at 2:01 AM CDT

Students in Manitoba are facing additional costs at a time when many are already struggling with the rising cost of living, despite repeated promises from the provincial government to make life more affordable.

In the March 2026 Manitoba Budget, the provincial government permitted post-secondary institutions to increase domestic tuition by up to the legislated maximum of four per cent for the 2026-2027 academic year, despite students already facing rising housing costs, food insecurity, growing debt and an increasingly difficult labour market.

However, all hope was not lost — the decision on how much to raise tuition still rested with the institutions themselves. Much like a speed limit, the four per cent increase was the maximum, not necessarily the target.

Like with speed limits, however, the maximum became the target, as boards of the University of Winnipeg, Brandon University and the University of Manitoba decided to raise tuition by the maximum allowable four per cent. Meanwhile, provincial operating funding to post-secondary institutions increased by only two per cent.

AP Photo/Pascal Bastien Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney, right, and President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola arrive at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, eastern France, Sept 17

Mark Carney’s campaign for middle powers

Gwynne Dyer 5 minute read Preview

Mark Carney’s campaign for middle powers

Gwynne Dyer 5 minute read 2:01 AM CDT

“You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose,” said former New York Governor Mario Cuomo forty years ago. Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney is now in the poetic phase of his campaign to create an alliance — maybe just a loose alliance — of middle powers who can resist the brutal strength of the great powers.

Carney knows how the world used to work, and how it is changing as the ‘rules-based international order’ fades away under the impact of the three great autocrats, Putin, Trump and Xi. “Middle powers must act together,” he told the Davos conference last January, “because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu.”

“The old order is not coming back,” he told them. That should have been obvious to all of them, but many countries in Europe and beyond still clung to the belief that somehow, one of these days, maybe after Trump relinquishes power or dies, the old order can be resurrected.

In a single speech that catapulted him into the de facto position of leader of the middle powers, he disabused them of that fantasy and offered them a path to resistance instead. They gave him a standing ovation, a very rare thing at Davos — and he managed to convince them without mentioning any of the problematic powers by name. So I will.

Read
2:01 AM CDT
FREE PRESS FILES

Firefighter admits to conditional sentence breach

Dean Pritchard 4 minute read Preview

Firefighter admits to conditional sentence breach

Dean Pritchard 4 minute read 2:01 AM CDT

A Winnipeg firefighter previously jailed for criminally harassing two different women has been released from custody after admitting to breaching a conditional sentence order.

Christopher Goethals, 59, was arrested July 21 after an alert from his ankle monitor six days earlier showed he had driven within 400 metres of the workplace of a former girlfriend he had been ordered to have no contact with.

Goethals pleaded guilty Wednesday to not being in possession of a copy of his conditional sentence order, a requirement of his sentence.

Crown attorney Amanda Heslop withdrew a breach charge related to Goethals’ electronic monitoring conditions and stayed a third charge of disobeying a court order.

Read
2:01 AM CDT
SUPPLIED Spirit of Seven Oaks House provides the perfect vibes to kick off this spooky season.

Seven Oaks tour blends ghastly theatrics and local history

By Sheldon Birnie 5 minute read Preview

Seven Oaks tour blends ghastly theatrics and local history

By Sheldon Birnie 5 minute read 2:00 AM CDT

History buffs and ghostbusters will be exploring one of Winnipeg’s oldest homes and grounds by candlelight this weekend.

“Spirits of Seven Oaks brings together two things already woven into the place: history and haunting. You’re not just going to hear history, you get to walk through it,” says Tracey Turner, curator and manager of Seven Oaks House Museum.

For more than a decade the national historic site has hosted similar events during the early autumn lead up to Halloween. In the past, the first half, which takes place in rooms throughout Seven Oaks House — the oldest standing home in Winnipeg — were led by a museum interpreter, while the outside portion is led by Matthew Komus, author of Haunted Winnipeg and Haunted Manitoba.

“With ghost stories, I’ve always been interested in tying it to the place,” says Komus, whose book Haunted Winnipeg is now in its ninth printing. “It’s part of who we are. That’s something that we really focus on. Most of the stories we talk about, it’s about a rural settlement. We’re on the estate, though a lot of it is a neighbour.”

Read
2:00 AM CDT