Laura Occasionally Blogs

I read a lot of advice columns. I'm not sure why. Every once in a great while, a columnist gives some good advice, but most of the time, it's unsatisfactory. Still, it's interesting at least to read people's problems, and come up with your own advice. Then you can see if the columnist's advice matches, or is worse.

Each column has its own excesses. Let's review.

Annie's Mailbox by Kathy Mitchell and Marcie Sugar: The most mainstream, tame of the advice columns. Responses are usually brief and along the lines of "Get marital counseling," "Call this hotline," or "Volunteer in your community."

Dear Abby by Jeanne Phillips: Slightly longer, punchier responses than Mailbox, but still usually: "Get counseling; if he won't go, go alone" and "Ask, 'Why do you want to know?'"

Ask Amy by Amy Dickinson: I like Amy Dickinson--she's sometimes funny on Wait! Wait! Don't Tell Me or the occasional fluffy radio segment--but hardly any of her personality is on display in this third, very mainstream column. She does occasionally take on slightly racier topics than the above two, such as a recent two-part column where readers weighed in on whether or not they like thongs. (She also tends to solicit too much reader feedback, I think.)

Handy Hint: If you ever want an advice columnist to tell you to break up with someone, write to them about your boyfriend. If you want them to tell you you can work it out if you try, write to them about your husband.

Carolyn Hax Carolyn's column used to be "advice for the under-30 set," but now I guess it's for everyone, since there have been columns where people ask about their 20-year marriages, adult children, etc. Still, the readership is still somewhat younger than the above columns, I think. Carolyn has weekly live chats which she writes columns from on Fridays, which are nice because you can have some back-and-forth, with readers responding to Carolyn's advice and Carolyn responding to the response.

My favorite thing about Carolyn Hax is that she seems to have a keener eye than most for seeing through the letter-writer's preconceptions. She doesn't automatically agree with her(/his) POV. She calls them on their BS. My least favorite thing about Carolyn Hax is that she never seems to give actual advice. She reviews the writer's preconceptions; gives a lot of either-or options; turns the problem inside out and upside down; and then just sort of stops shy of actually suggesting any course of action. Perhaps this is a conscious strategy to get people to solve their own problems, but it always leaves me feeling like, "...And?"

Since You Asked by Cary Tennis: This one is almost impossible to read. Each column is only one letter, and he responds at length, which is a nice change from some of the two-line responses of Abby and Amy and Annie which leave you feeling like you wasted your time getting invested in the problem. But Cary's lengthy responses just make my eyes glaze over. They're not only too long, but they're usually gibberish (or at least that's how it seems to me, but I have a heart of stone). He always empathizes with the writer, maybe too much. He's very heart-on-his-sleeve and sometimes openly heartbroken at whatever the writer is going through. Frequently there is no actual advice.

But sometimes there is! One out of every three or four columns, there will be two paragraphs of surprisingly concrete advice followed by two paragraphs of meandering incomprehensible philosophizing. Most of the time, though, there is just four paragraphs of meandering incomprehensible philosophizing. Cary Tennis's column, I think, is the clearest example of the hit-and-miss nature of advice columns.

Also, he does not use contractions.

Do you have a daily advice column of which you are fond--or not so fond? Comment! I will add it to my list.

I will do a follow-up post of weekly columns.

This is my post on the daily columns.

Sunday

The Ethicist by Randy Cohen: Ethics is the topic of this column, which makes it just different enough from the regular advice column that you get more workplace and wacky questions and fewer wedding and heartbreak questions, which is nice. Randy Cohen does a decent job of pointing out what I usually agree is the ethical course of action, and he's generally pretty entertaining about it, if sometimes corny. Sometimes he posts a one-line "update" saying what the writer actually did, which is nice.

Tuesday

Baggage Check by Dr. Andrea Bonior: I haven't read much of this one yet. It's by a psychologist. So far, it seems pretty bland, committing the usual advice column sin of rephrasing and responding to the problem but not really saying how to solve it.

Advice Goddess by Amy Alkon: Amy Alkon is a study in extremes. On the one hand, she's direct, funny, and brooks no guff, which I usually consider pluses, and which do make her column entertaining when they're not about men and women and dating how men are and how women are. When they are about those things, she tends to back up her (often maddeningly decent) advice with He's Just Not That Into You-style sexist caveman bullshit psuedoscience that makes me want to kick her in the pants.

Wednesday

Miss Manners by Judith Martin: An oldy but a goody, Miss Manners is, with all these competitors, still in my top five. She's snarky in a smart, slightly veiled way, and she has a firm, clearly delineated code of conduct. That is the golden ideal! Sure, she sometimes mistrusts the Internet or whatever, but the advice is generally surprisingly non-antiquated and relevant: after all, as she reminds us, regardless of the technology involved or the details of the situation, the point of manners is to make everyone feel comfortable.

Dr. Lovemonkey by Rudy Cheeks: I seem to recall comparing Dr. Lovemonkey (unfavorably) to Savage Love in the past, so maybe I've done this before. I haven't read this one in awhile, but apparently it's still going. The questions range from serious to facetious with answers to match, but there are good and bad sides to Lovemonkey's humor; it's gratingly judgmental as often as it's funny. A plus, though, is that it's Rhode Island local, so sometimes he says callous things offhand about Cranston girls, etc. I still like the column about the Ocean State Foot Licker.

Thursday

Dear Prudence by Emily Yoffe: This tends to be an advice column where the questions are juicy and weird, but the answers tend to fall short. She riffs on the question, points out some absurdities, but the advice itself, while cleverly (sometimes too sugary-punny-cleverly) written, is the same old same old.

Savage Love by Dan Savage: Most of people's problems with Dan Savage--he's mean, he's dogmatic, he's too quick on the DTMFA trigger, he's full of himself, he defines words too much--I understand and agree with. Still, he's one of the more entertaining columnists, and also, to be honest, one of the ones I most consistently agree with. I've been finding his written column tedious lately because he so often ignores the question and uses the column as a platform to rant, but he gives actual advice on the podcast, which is one of the most entertaining 30-40 minutes on the radio.

Get Naked by Jamie Bufalino: I haven't read much of this one yet. It seems like a slightly more Feeling version of Savage Love.

Twice A Week

Dear Margo by Margo Howard: The old writer of Dear Prudence. Reads a lot like the current Dear Prudence. I think Margo Howard was a slightly better Prudie; she's a bit more direct, a bit more genuinely pithy, rely a bit less on goofy puns and alliteration (but still does some of that). But they're pretty equivalent. (Wednesdays & Thursdays)

The Vine by Sarah D. Bunting: Sarah Bunting or "Sars" is a longtime writer and editor for Television Without Pity; her style very much set the tone for the whole enterprise, so you know she's snarky and funny in a direct, somewhat boyish kind of way. She tends to publish long letters (edited, but sometimes not enough so, I think), so sometimes I skip to the advice, which is the opposite of the way I usually read columns. Also, some of the letters--particularly the ones asking about products people want to find, problems with their cats, baseball, or grammatical usage--are boring. (And I disagree with her grammatical stuff generally: she's a prescriptivist!) But Sars's advice is a lot more honest, direct, and funnily-put than most, and when she's good, she's really really good. (Wednesdays & Fridays)

Gah. I know way too many of these.

But, you know, feel free to suggest another one.