One of my dreams is to become a professional advice columnist. It’s tough to break into this gig, there are no entry-level advice columnist jobs. Most people are born into it (both “Ann Landers” and “Dear Abby” have passed from mother to daughter). It’s also a female-dominated profession (Dan Savage notwithstanding). I’ve decided to show my advice-giving chops by answering letters from the popular “Dear Prudence” column on Slate and the Washington Post. The current author of the column, Emily Yoffe, does a decent enough job, but I think I can improve on her responses (which you can read here if you want to compare our answers).
Dear Prudence,
I’ve been happily married for more than 30 years. Recently, my husband received a text message from a man saying that he was going to use him as a cover so he could visit another man in a neighboring town. This made me suspicious, so I looked in his wallet and found a visitor’s pass to a gay men’s health club. Then I found a gay porn DVD and Viagra in his gym bag. On his computer were gay Web sites. My husband had an excuse for everything. He said a man he works out with had given him the DVDs and the pass, and he didn’t even know what they were. The Viagra was so he could be “ready” for me. He didn’t know how the gay Web site cookies got on his computer.. Last weekend, I came home unexpectedly and found him masturbating to gay porn. He said he wanted to see some porn, and this was the only thing he had because he didn’t know where to get anything else. I feel as if my whole marriage has been a sham, and I don’t know what to do.
—Who Is He?
Dear WIH,
You better hope that he’s gay. If I were a woman, I’d rather be married to a gay man than a man too dumb to find heterosexual porn on the internet and too stupid to get what’s going on when a guy at the gym hands him a DVD full of gay porn (sidenote: are there really gay gyms?). Look at it this way – after 30 years of marriage, most straight husbands aren’t aroused by their wives either. Have your husband email me and I’ll give him some tips on lying to you more effectively so you can live out the rest of your days in denial.
— NotPrudence
Dear Prudence,
My wife and I recently had a large gathering of friends over the weekend. I was talking to my friend when his wife walked in, sat on a chair, and joined the conversation. When they both left the room minutes later, I saw a red stain on the fabric of the chair. I quickly cleaned it up. About an hour later, my wife came up to me and said she had found blood drops all over the bathroom floor. Just as we were beginning to wonder what was going on, another guest came in and told us that my friend’s wife had just gotten up from a chair outside and left quite a bloody spot. This woman is married to a dear friend, and I hope to have them visit again, but this behavior is not acceptable. What should I do?
—A Bloody Mess
Dear ABM,
I’m confused by this question. Did she cut herself? Maybe you shouldn’t leave sharp objects lying around. Unless you can be more clear about how the woman was injured, I’m afraid I can’t offer up much in the way of advice.
— NotPrudence
Dear Prudence:
About four months ago, my wife and I found out that my 18-year-old son’s girlfriend had a Twitter account. It became a guilty pleasure for us to occasionally look at this account to see what was up in her life. About two months ago, as they went through a breakup, it became heartbreaking for us to see her reaction. We were going to leave it at that, but since the breakup, I have occasionally gone back to see how she is doing. I know that my wife and son have no idea that I am keeping up with her. Even though she never posts anything salacious, I feel a little like a dirty old man. I make a vow to stop, but a week later I find myself going back just to see how she is doing because I convince myself that I am doing no real harm. Should I be worried about my behavior?
—Can’t Stop Reading Tweets
Dear CSRT,
It is clear that you are in love with this girl (I’m calling her “Lotweeta” – get it?) – but are you in love with the real person underneath or just her heartbreakingly romantic tweets? I know it sets my heart afire when I read “OMG Dustin just txted me that were braking up? i’m so sad i’m gonna go to the mall and kill myself in front of skechers where he works”.
The solution is simple – divorce your wife and propose marriage to this girl (“@Lotweeta – hey U, I’m ur exes dad. I luv ur tweets – want to go to vegas and get hitched?”). Whisk her off to a backwoods cabin and force her to do nothing but twitter all day long. Forbid her from speaking unless she can say it in 140 characters or less. Don’t let your friends and family judge you – they are just jealous because they don’t have child Twitter-brides of their own.
–NotPrudence