Woman burned too many times by men

DEAR AMY » My last two relationships have totally done me in. I am through with dating. After a very long marriage that ended in divorce, I engaged in a relationship that lasted for 17 years.

After we split (he, too, cheated on me), I spent the next eight years in single bliss.

Soon, a friend from school contacted me and when we got together we enjoyed spending time talking and reminiscing about mutual friends. After a few years of that, I discovered that this man was also someone I needed to lose.

Now I walk around without coloring my hair and never wear makeup because I am not trying to impress anyone. I truly do enjoy my singleness, but sometimes I feel I would still like to have a companion in my life to grow old with. How do I overcome my distrust and general wariness of men? DEAR BURNED » Overcoming your distrust in men is a process. Anxiety about growing old alone doesn’t provide an ideal motivation for trustbuilding.

I’d like to address your growing-old-with-a-companion issue. Why not grow old with a woman/ friend/companion? Perhaps you have a compatible friend who is at your approximate stage of life, who would like to try an experiment in co-housing. Having a housemate to share expenses and experiences with might be the perfect gray-hair having, no makeup wearing, non-romance busting solution for you.

DEAR AMY » “Stuck at the Back” complained about being seated in the back of the reception hall at her cousin’s wedding. I’m an old fogey, but unless things have changed a lot, the bride’s family pays for the reception and determines seating. So, the cousin might not have had any say at all in where her relatives might be seated. DEAR FOGEY » Also, sometimes people simply make mistakes. It is rude, however, to ask the bridal couple to do something about seating during their own wedding reception.

Contact Amy Dickinson via email at askamy@ tribpub.com.