I like advice columns. Please advise.

November 8, 2013 12:03 PM

Nothing helps me fall asleep at night like a well-written advice column. My current favorites are Dear Prudence, She Said, She Said, and The Gentleman Scholar. Who else might I like?

Savage Love is usually too focused on sex for me, although I sometimes read it. I'm not interested in home repair or shopping. I'd be interested in advice columns from countries other than the US, but they'd have to be in English. The advice columns in newspapers are too short -- I like when the writer has several paragraphs to answer. I need to be able to subscribe to an RSS feed for the column.

posted by The corpse in the library to Media & Arts (34 answers total)

I love Captain Awkward. Lengthy, thoughtful, compassionate responses. (Some of the posts are not advice columns but are meetups or other extraneous things -- scroll down to get to the numbered questions. The most recent one, I think, is #514.)
posted by cider at 12:06 PM on November 8, 2013 [9 favorites]

Have you read all the old Dear Sugar articles?
posted by morganannie at 12:07 PM on November 8, 2013 [8 favorites]

I cannot say enough nice things about the Rabbit Blog, by Heather Havrilesky-- except maybe that I don't enjoy the regular blog posts as much as the sometimes rare "advice column" pieces, which you can identify by their traditional letter and answer format.
posted by seasparrow at 12:07 PM on November 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

How 'bout Since You Asked by Cary Tennis in Salon?
posted by carmicha at 12:08 PM on November 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

Carolyn Hax?
posted by purpleclover at 12:08 PM on November 8, 2013 [7 favorites]

Came in to suggest Dear Sugar and Carolyn Hax.
posted by dlugoczaj at 12:09 PM on November 8, 2013 [2 favorites]

Seconding Cary Tennis.

I haven't read The Vine in years, but I loved it when I did.
posted by Metroid Baby at 12:10 PM on November 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

The back archives and ongoing columns of Cary Tennis's "Since you asked" should keep you busy for a while. Garrison Keillor also wrote a Salon advice column called "Mr. Blue" that I liked quite a bit. You can google up columns, but I haven't been able to find an archive list.
posted by Jahaza at 12:11 PM on November 8, 2013 [2 favorites]

The archives of the Hairpin's Ask a Lady series are great.
posted by jeudi at 12:14 PM on November 8, 2013

Carolyn Hax is great; I also like that with one RSS feed, you get Hax, Miss Manners, Heloise and Ask Amy. I don't always read them all, but it's nice to have a variety!
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 12:14 PM on November 8, 2013

Nthing Dear Sugar, also comes in Book Form "Tiny, Beautiful Things" by Cheryl Strayed.
posted by thankyouforyourconsideration at 12:14 PM on November 8, 2013 [2 favorites]

Dear Coquette is fantastic. It's a Tumblr blog, though, so I have no idea how RSSable it is. I assume someone's sorted that out...
posted by restless_nomad at 12:16 PM on November 8, 2013 [3 favorites]

Response by poster: Yup, Tumblr can be RSS'ed.
posted by The corpse in the library at 12:18 PM on November 8, 2013

Maybe Caity Weaver's Thatz Not Ok on Gawker?
posted by CheeseLouise at 12:20 PM on November 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

Heather Havrilesky also write the excellent Ask Polly on The Awl. She's pretty much my internet life coach these days.
posted by mandymanwasregistered at 12:21 PM on November 8, 2013 [4 favorites]

Ask Metafilter / Human Relations!
posted by Tom-B at 12:23 PM on November 8, 2013 [4 favorites]

Ask A Manager!

All sorts of weird human relations in an office!
posted by jrobin276 at 12:41 PM on November 8, 2013 [8 favorites]

My favorites (Dear Sugar, Captain Awkward) have already been recommended. You may also enjoy Here's That Bad Advice You Were Hoping For.
posted by ourobouros at 12:41 PM on November 8, 2013 [4 favorites]

Seconding Caity Weaver's Thatz Not Okay. It NEVER fails to make me giggle myself silly... Caity writes in this whip-smart but also dementedly silly voice that is just pure win.
posted by julthumbscrew at 12:42 PM on November 8, 2013

Seconding Ask a Manager - useful stuff and also some schaudenfreude. Also Ask a Clean Person on Jezebel/Gawker.
posted by radioamy at 12:46 PM on November 8, 2013

Try Jen Dziura's Bullish column. Not always letters from readers but always great advice in one form or another. (Posts are aggregated here but looks like the linking to the originals is a bit annoying, sorry.)
posted by mlle valentine at 12:56 PM on November 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

I assume you are looking for online but I have been working through this Miss Manners book and at 800+ pages it has given me months of short nighttime reading and I've learned a few things.
posted by jessamyn at 1:17 PM on November 8, 2013 [3 favorites]

Miss Manners is great! Very witty and useful to boot.

I have an old version, which is interesting because of how things have changed. In the edition that I have, she's navigating the etiquette of these newfangled devices called answering machines (spoiler: she loves them).

From the same edition is this primer (via someone's blog) on what people really mean when they say something like "we really must do this again sometime!" and then don't follow up. I feel like many AskMe questions could be answered by this, and it should be required reading for all foreigners and Socially Clueless people like myself.
posted by small_ruminant at 1:35 PM on November 8, 2013

Have you read the Ask Mr. Blue archive? Garrison Keillor wrote it for Salon starting in 1997. I loved it at the time and would think his advice would be timeless.
posted by valeries at 1:38 PM on November 8, 2013

Cary Tennis was recently let go from Salon and is continuing his advice column on his own site now: Cary Tennis - Advice Column. I've been following him for at least a decade: he's wonderfully compassionate, smart, and constructively no-nonsense when needed.
posted by fraula at 1:47 PM on November 8, 2013

Tomato Nation: The Vine alternates between personal advice and name-thatbook/movie/show/product. Oh, and occasionally grammar questions. They're all enjoyable, but I really love the advice columns.
posted by Kriesa at 1:51 PM on November 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

Seconding The Vine - I'm so glad it's still going, after all these years. Sars has a... particular perspective but her advice is sound.

Dear Deidre is part of Rupert Murdoch's empire but is the only reason my friends and I pick up The Sun at the cafe or the pub. Her column has run for several decades and the problems are oh so typically English but, again, her advice is sound. And good lord, the problems.
posted by goo at 5:12 PM on November 8, 2013

Response by poster: Damn that Murdoch -- I would have to have an account to find out what happens with Ted and his girlfriend and that girl they phone up to come around.
posted by The corpse in the library at 7:18 PM on November 8, 2013

Cary Tennis got canned?!?! I was wondering why he hadn't updated lately. Damn. Well, glad to hear he's continuing on.

Seriously, every advice column I read has shown up in this thread already. Oh wait, there's one left: Doctor Nerd Love, who focuses on dudes wanting to date but is good reading for all.
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:32 PM on November 8, 2013

I like Everyone Is Gay, even though I am not gay.
posted by chainsofreedom at 6:26 AM on November 9, 2013

Came in to suggest Garrison Keillor's Mr Blue, but I see others have beaten me to it - so just thirding it.
posted by penguin pie at 7:00 AM on November 9, 2013

Came here to suggest Heather Havrilesky either at the Awl or her blog. Great advice, with a distinctive swagger.
posted by lunasol at 9:36 AM on November 9, 2013

Boo! Sorry about that. I looked for some scans but there doesn't seem to be any.
posted by goo at 2:56 AM on November 10, 2013

I quite like E.Jean from US Elle. A lot wittier than I expected given the publication.

Dear Mariella is British, if you'd prefer something non-US.
posted by mippy at 8:17 AM on November 13, 2013