Dear Advice Columnist

I've always been intrigued by the advice columns in the newspaper.

attribution below

Presumably, I'm not the only one, because, in my local rag, there's a proliferation of this genre. Where once Dear Abby and Ann Landers ruled, we can now get advice from Carolyn Hax, Dear Annie, Asking Eric, Meghan Leahy, and Heloise (she of the "Hints" for better living).

Reading these columns is a sort of guilty pleasure. It's comforting to see that other people have the same problems as I do. Or different problems that are much worse than mine. Or petty concerns that make me roll my eyes and say, "I should be so lucky if that's all I had to worry about."

Me being me, I can't stop from ruminating beyond the stories presented in these tales of woe-is-I. 

For example, there's the "he-said, she-said" factor – you're only getting one side of the story. Yes, there are times when the snarkiness or evil intent of the writer comes through loud and clear. But there are other times when I can't help wondering how the person on the other side of the table perceives their behavior. After all, it's not difficult to stretch the truth when pleading your case. I'd love to see a column where the other person had an opportunity to rebut.

"Jane, you ignorant slut!" (If you don't get the SNL reference, feel free to look it up.)

I'm not the only one in this house who enjoys reading these columns. (And no, I don't mean the cat.) Mr. Ginley partakes of them all, and he watches a lot of these sagas on YouTube. He will even talk back to the TV, when the narrator asks, "AITA" (i.e. "Am I the A-hole). His answer is most frequently "No!"

Why do we love peering into the lives of others? Does it make us feel better that we're not the only ones experiencing whatever it is we're going through? A "count your blessings" scenario, realizing others have it much worse than we do? Or a superior "get a life" reaction because we know our troubles are much worse than the idiot who's whining about her wedding cake being the wrong flavor and how her day was totally ruined.

As for me, I can't imagine ever writing a letter to an advice columnist.

I mean, as it is, Mr. Ginley occasionally says something like, "I saw your letter in Dear Abby today. I would never grab your ass in a fancy restaurant." 

I simply don't need that kind of drama.

Attribution: Alfred Stevens, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons