Advice

Sunday’s Dear Abby featured a question from a woman who had told an infertile friend to “just relax” and couldn’t understand why the friend was so upset when she was just trying to help. Abby, thank goodness, had the sense to explain the problem. Not as bluntly as I might have, of course, but with a decent dose of “How exactly do you think that helped your friend?” (Akeeyu has a much more detailed - and of course better - take on it here.)

This somewhat makes up for the “Tell Me About It/Carolyn Hax” column a couple of days ago where the happily-married mother of two (call her Friend A) vented about her bad day to a friend with a rocky marriage who has been trying to have kids (Friend B) and who then complained about being vented to. Carolyn agreed that it wasn’t reasonable for Friend B to have been so upset about the minor venting. What I wanted to know (and I sent a note to Carolyn on this point) was - what exactly did Friend A say in her venting? Because if she said “My kids are driving me nuts, you should be glad you don’t have any” or “You want kids? Take mine” then I think Friend B was entirely justified in being pissed off. Hell, I’m pissed on her behalf, and I don’t even know what happened. And even if that’s not what happened - does Friend A generally listen to and support Friend B or does she regularly complain about her fairly-decent life without offering any support to a friend in need? It’s just not as simple as it was portrayed is all I’m saying.

And then I thought I’d better go back to reading the comics instead, because clearly the advice columns were far too stressful.