17 July 2008

Advice column sluts

So, I have a weird fascination with advice columns, probably because Dear Abby and Ann Landers were the most exciting parts of the local paper in my no-stoplight-but-many-cows hometown. As a result, and thanks to the web, I regularly read Since You Asked, Dear Prudence, Dear Abby and Ask Margo. I don't know anyone else who finds reading advice columns as entertaining as catching up on celebrity gossip, so I'm probably the only one who ever notices this, but the same question is often answered by two or more columns. I guess the questioner wanted to get the highest probability of a published answer and sent her letter (all three instances I can think of were women) or maybe to get a range and choose her favorite answer. It just seems like such a strange phenomenon to me.

The latest example is that today's Dear Margo addressing a gym bore was just recently answered by Prudie.

0 comments: