Abbys, Conducts and Savage Manners

Advice columns -- you know the Dear Abbys, Miss Manners and Conduct types -- there’s a zillion of them now. I LOVE these!

Warum? Every last one of us (a lot of us anyway) has an opinion, has an idea of what the bestest plan of action is for most circumstances. At least where other people’s lives are concerned -- maybe we’re not so laser focused with our own paths.

I like to see how my help schemes stack up against the experts but also, having been raised by wolves without delicate table manners, I’m attempting to learn something -- gain a smackerel of wisdom. (Hey, that wisdom shit can be found in the most amazing places -- you’ve just got to look!)

My current fav columnists are Miss Conduct, AKA Robin Abrahams and Dan Savage. She’s got a regular Sunday column in the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine section. It’s the first thing I read...after the comics that is. Mr. Savage writes the Savage Love column for Seattle’s The Stranger.

He’s got a biting, razor wit at the same time he truly wants to help and totally has the knack for it. Savage’s advice is pragmatic, unjudging and to the point. Some of the counsel seekers are into pretty amazing, out-there (for me) kinks, some are looking for straight up recommendations on what to do about a cheating spouse or how to handle life when the beloved spouse has been deployed to Afghanistan for a year.

In any case, I’m just wild about Dan Savage. Check out his blog too.
Ms. Abraham’s has a book out now, ‘Miss Conduct’s Mind Over Manners,' which addresses such burning issues as:

* Is it polite to say “Bless you” to a sneezing atheist?
* Does knitting at a meeting display a lack of attention or superior multitasking?
* What’s a nice vegetarian to do if Gypsies give her bread smeared with lard?

And from a recent blog post of hers:

I'm often asked (not as frequently as before the election) what to do about friends, relatives, and acquaintances who send out mass e-mails that are annoying, wrongheaded, debunked on snopes.com, or simply not funny. I don't think you have to let blatant lies or hate speech go unchallenged, but if the e-mails are merely boring or irritating, follow the excellent advice of Stephen L. Black of Bishop's University:

'The delete key: For when you want to read of fewer things between heaven and earth than are dreamed of in your philosophy.'

I’m keen on Miss Manners (AKA Judith Martin) too, though I rarely see her column.

“There are three possible parts to a date, of which at least two must be offered: entertainment, food, and affection. It is customary to begin a series of dates with a great deal of entertainment, a moderate amount of food, and the merest suggestion of affection. As the amount of affection increases, the entertainment can be reduced proportionately. When the affection IS the entertainment, we no longer call it dating. Under no circumstances can the food be omitted.”

Yup -- that’s some solid insight right there! Seriously.

When I was a kid I certainly enjoyed Dear Abby (R.I.P.) though, like my awesome Aunt Mary Ann, some of her advice struck me as a bit dated.

She wasn’t as flat out amusing in dispensing the old wisdom as Misses Conduct or Manners or Mister Savage but she did have a light, direct and occasionally tart touch.

“You could move.' ---"Dear Abby" responds to a reader who complained that a gay couple was moving in across the street and wanted to know what he could do to improve the quality of the neighborhood.”

Fear less, hope more. Eat less, chew more. Talk less, say more. Hate less, love more, and never underestimate the power of forgiveness.

Back when I was a teen Dear Abby reader, what I worried about most (yes worried -- fretting is one of my superpowers) was the folks who had biggest need for advice and counseling. They’d have to:

* Go through the long slow process of deciding to ask for help,
followed by
* Making a commitment to act not just whinge on to your pals or, worse yet, suffer in silence -- actually writing that letter and mailing it
* Then there’s the waiting and waiting while the Post Office delivers the pleas for help, the message in a bottle,
* If your letter actually made it this far, it then competes against the thousands of other pleas for help Abby must have received every day. Will YOU get to stand in the Special Person Who Needs Advice Desperately Spotlight Of The Day?

OOF -- major daunt-a-thon! I wondered, would they/could they get the help they needed elsewhere? I mean, if they’re writing to a stranger in a newspaper for help, maybe they’ve no friends or family to assist, huh?

Fret, worry, disquiet.

Do you read the advice columns? If so, why?