The Unit of Caring

you gave me wings when you showed me birds

Anonymous asked: What do you think of Captain Awkward?

She has some very good advice! Her style of communicating is reassuring. Her stuff on boundaries is patient, careful and very valuable. One thing that she’s good at that a lot of advice columnists are not is giving lots of scripts and covering lots of ground in possible ways of handling a situation. She also is very willing to talk about events in her own past that have taught her how to be better at relationships.

Her dating advice reliably makes me sad. Often I find myself thinking I wouldn’t give different advice but I’d have very different emphasis. For example, consider her advice to this guy who asked out a friend. The friend kissed him, then said no and cut off the friendship. She characterizes his letter as “Someone told me they don’t want to be with me. How can I change their mind?” and her advice is “don’t talk to her again because I’ve dealt with creeps who kept trying to talk me into a relationship I didn’t want and it was the worst, and I’ve been that creep and I was the worst. It does suck, and I feel for you, but learn to take ‘no’ for an answer”

whereas I’d have said “that sucks; it’s everyone’s worst nightmare when we ask out a friend. It sucks even more because the mixed messages left space open for you to imagine it’s all going to work out. If it does, though, it’s not going to be because you convince her to give it another shot. It’s going to hurt a lot but you should stop talking with her for the time being, lean on other friends, cry a lot, eat a lot of your favorite foods, and don’t let it discourage you from asking out a friend again - it really is okay to express interest in friends.)” 

Or consider this one, where a woman broke up amicably with a guy three months ago, but now hates seeing him at events with her friends even though she knows he has no other friends. CA advises that she ask him to stop going to the events, debates for a while whether it’s okay to ask all their mutual friends to stop inviting him, and concludes “Maybe save the mass shunning for assholes.”

Maybe??? DEFINITELY save the mass shunning for assholes, or really for actually abusive and dangerous people! It is not okay to ask all of your ex-boyfriend’s friends to stop spending time with him! It’s not even debatably okay! It’s really not fair even to ask him to stop going to events with that social circle, given that he has no other one! Letter-writer needs to plan her own events and not invite him, hang with her friends one-on-one, or cope. Mass shunning should not even be on the table!! Aaah!

Relatedly, her dating advice for men strikes me as utterly and totally useless, but I’m not a man. I will say that I haven’t heard from a single romantically lonely man who said “yes, that advice helped me!” and I’ve heard from a lot that said “it was condescending, wrong and upsetting to read.” (Many women seem to think it was great, but.)

  1. almostcoralchaos reblogged this from funereal-disease
  2. compassionisobligatory reblogged this from theunitofcaring
  3. professorcat17 reblogged this from gingerautie
  4. fandom-geek reblogged this from gingerautie
  5. ruairidhohboy reblogged this from gingerautie
  6. gingerautie reblogged this from theunitofcaring
  7. philippesaner reblogged this from theunitofcaring and added:
    I am a man, and I like her advice. I don’t date, though, so I might not be the best judge.And I’m pretty sure “maybe”...
  8. osberend reblogged this from funereal-disease
  9. funereal-disease reblogged this from wirehead-wannabe
  10. lalaithion reblogged this from theunitofcaring
  11. fluorescentbrains reblogged this from theunitofcaring
  12. jaiwithanadult reblogged this from osberend
  13. theunitofcaring posted this