Advice Columns

[Deleted]

Jul 26, 2009 21:28:51 GMT -4 divasahm said:

Okay, I give up. I hate Dear Abby now and I'm not going to read it any more.

Was it her advice to the woman who is worried about developing dementia? Because her friends are, like, totally going to notice any changes in her behavior, even if she doesn't. So it's not like she should, you know, investigate her options and make a plan for assisted living in the event that she needs it.

[divasahm]

Jul 27, 2009 2:44:45 GMT -4 @desireelegume said:

Jul 26, 2009 21:28:51 GMT -4 divasahm said:

Okay, I give up. I hate Dear Abby now and I'm not going to read it any more.

Was it her advice to the woman who is worried about developing dementia? Because her friends are, like, totally going to notice any changes in her behavior, even if she doesn't. So it's not like she should, you know, investigate her options and make a plan for assisted living in the event that she needs it.

Sorry--the link was time-sensitive and I was referring to yesterday's column with the woman whose husband insists on choosing all the gifts they give as a couple and setting an arbitrary dollar amount. They're a six-figure dual income couple and her husband apparently wouldn't consider allowing her to buy a few toys for their grandson's first birthday, insisting instead on a $100 savings bond and announcing that that would be their only birthday gift to the child every year from now on.

Abby's response? Most one-year-olds don't care about toys anyway and in this economy, you would be wise to listen to your husband on this matter. Really, Abby? Ever been to a first birthday party? Never mind about the control issues this couple is having, never mind that this woman isn't talking about blowing the bank on gifts, never mind that this woman was desperate enough to write Dear Abby for help and gets no compassion or understanding at all--just "No, your husband is right and you should listen to him".

I've been reading Dear Abby since grade school, but I just can't take the frustration any more.

[Deleted]

That column chapped my ass, and it should set off all sorts of warning bells. Plus, when you read it closely, it sounds like the husband is a re-marriage and he's holding the purse strings on how much she spends on her bio-grandkid.

On the one hand, I always got a savings bond from my grandparents for birthday/Christmas, plus an inexpensive gift (puzzles, books, subscription to Chickadee magazine), and I totally love the idea of savings + small present. What bothers me is that the guy sounds like a control freak about it.

[Auroranorth]

Wow, way to blame the victim.

Dear Friend or Foe,

A couple of weeks ago, my two closest friends and I went to a small live-music venue to hear a band. While at the concert, someone “slipped me a mickey.” I remember nothing about the rest of the evening, but I was told that the police officer found me lying alone on the sidewalk. I came-to in the hospital E.R.—alone. The entire experience was frightening.

Since then, I’ve tried to piece together what happened. Apparently, at the end of the band's set, I left for the ladies room with my purse—and didn’t come back. My friends figured I had left, so they left, too. Later, when I called them from the street, sobbing in hysterics and asking for help, they told me to go back to the club and that they would have an ambulance pick me up there. When my mother—who lives 2,000 miles away (and hopped on a plane the next day to be with me)—later called these two friends of mine to beg them to join me while I was recovering, they refused. It wasn't until I told them that the hospital wouldn’t release me until I had someone to drive me home that they came to pick me up. They then angrily drove me to my car, and I drove home alone. By then, it was the next morning.

I have known these girls for more than 10 years, and had until now considered them my best friends. But I can't help feeling as though they’d abandoned me. If I found out one of them had been taken to the hospital, I would have dropped everything and gone to be by her side. Am I expecting too much from my best friends, both of whom are mid-twentysomething professional women?

Sincerely,
Thanks for Rescuing Me After I Was Drugged and Left for Dead—Not!



Dear TFRMAIWDALFDN!,

Wow, that’s a tough call. A spouse or even a boyfriend? Yes, it would be his or her duty to haul ass to said hospital at 4 a.m. But your single female friends who are already, presumably tucked in their beddy-bies? I have to admit that, if I got a call like yours (or your mother’s) in the middle of the night, I’d do what I could from home, but would be hard-pressed to jump in my car until morning.

For one thing, it’s not even necessarily safe—depending on where you live and how far you live from the hospital—for a woman to head out alone at that hour. For another, presumably, by the time your mother called you were out of danger. Yes, overnights at the E.R. are the opposite of fun. So are disastrous drug trips. (I had one in my twenties, which pretty much sealed my fate as an illegal-substance ninny.) But only nuns make it out of youth without a few ambulance rides.

Here’s a little secret. BFFs are great when you’re upset about a boy/sick cat/whatnot. But there are limits to friendship—limits that don’t apply to our romantic partners or close family members. What I fault your friends for is not driving you all the way home the next morning, or at least following you there to make sure you got through the door on two feet. I also wish they’d been a less critical of what was, by your account, a freak incident. Why were they so unforgiving? I’d wager a guess that they think you’re lying about the mickey, tales of which are sometimes used as a cover for irresponsible behavior. (Only you know the truth.)

If your buddies refuse to believe your account, it might be time to reexamine the friendships.

Sincerely,
Friend or Foe

I'm really galled that the columnist is acting like this is her fault. Slipped a mickey is not something that you do to yourself, it's something someone else did to you.

It gets better here:

And, as it turns out, there was one big piece of the puzzle missing that fell into place later—the explaination for why my friends were angry the next morning. While I was drugged, my friends tell me I ended up dancing with a boy my friend has a crush on. She thought I had violated the sacred bonds of friendship by dancing with (not kissing, not sleeping with) a guy she had told me she was attracted to. (I have no memory of dancing with him, and never would have if I had been aware of myself at all.) So even though she told me she thought something was wrong—I am rarely, if ever, wasted or stupid-drunk—she and the others left me at the concert, fed up with my flirty behavior.

Her "friends" are scum, in my book. The columist is a twit.

[Deleted]

Wow. Don't know how or who got blown for that so called columnist to get her job but she needs to go.

And the girl needs to dump her dipshit friends. I know damn good and well that any one of my friends would be there in a heartbeat for me. Maybe that is why most of my friendships have lasted over 20 years and through all sorts of shit. I feel bad for the OP.

[Deleted]

I read about that on The Vine, it's so messed up. The LW wrote a response saying that the real reason her "friends" ditched her was because after she got drugged she was dancing with a boy that one of them had a crush on. She decided on her own that they just weren't as close as she thought they were and is moving on.

[Ripley]

The comments about FoF's answer to that young woman are heartening, at least. People are calling her out all over the place. And when Lucinda (the columnist) tried to respond in a sort of sarcastic way, she got reamed all over again.

I've read a couple of her columns, and she is terrible. She can't decide if she wants to play it straight or be sarcastic and world-wise.

[ladyvorkosigan]

Yeah, I agree, Ripley, I don't know what Double X was thinking with Lucinda. Then again, I really don't know what Double X is thinking most of the time. I am not a fan.

[chonies]

I can't think of anything I've read on Double X that wasn't poorly researched, badly inflammatory and stupid in some way or another. The article they ran on Etsy as a faux-feminist paradise was neatly debunked in Bitch (I think).

Also, this part is extra stupid:

But only nuns make it out of youth without a few ambulance rides.

[Deleted]

Oct 20, 2009 17:21:12 GMT -4 chonies said:

Also, this part is extra stupid:

But only nuns make it out of youth without a few ambulance rides.

That is indeed extra stupid. I somehow managed to make it to 27 years of age without needing a single ambulance ride, perhaps I should chuck the librarian career and take the veil.