Dear Crabby,
My friend bought a house where the previous owner was horribly murdered. It makes me queasy that someone was gruesomely slaughtered there and the body wasn't found for days. And my boyfriend is creeped out too. I don't believe in ghosts, but how do I tell my friend that we'll never set foot in his house?
— "Eternal Darkness of the Spotless Mind"
Dear "The sick sense"
This is the plot of a Simpsons episode, where Marge sold Ned Flanders the home of a murder victim. It was resolved by the house being accidentally destroyed, which is not really an option for you (or is it?). Anyway, if you want to live your life on the same plane of awareness as cartoon episodes and superstitions, go ahead and insult your friend. I'm sure he'll have some snappy comeback, such as "you're too effing dumb to be my friend, you know?"
— Crabby, who refuses to read the Baltimore Sun because there are stories about murders in it, and they creep me out. In fact, the whole city creeps me out. But Crabby is not above violence herself, however.
Dear Crabby,
I've been diagnosed with prosopagnosia, also known as "face blindness." In my job as a temp secretary I meet new people all the time, but I can't remember their names. What can I say so that I don't seem like a doofus?
— "Face Off and On"
Dear "Gone with the Mind",
Well, you can't say "pro so pag no asia" (am i pronouncing that right?). You'll really seem like a doofus if you start bragging about your disability. I suggest that you use things like a person's gender, race, hair length/color etc as cues to who you're talking to. I don't want to seem unsympathetic, but you DID make it this far in life without claiming that you're sick, you know. And I assume that when you go to the movies you actually CAN tell the difference between Al Pacino and Marlon Brando in "The Godfather" (otherwise you've never understood what's going on). IMHO, there's very little upside to revealing one's mental illnesses. Play the hand you've been dealt, please.
— Crabby, who doesn't have tell people during our first meeting that I'm cold hearted and mean - they can figure that out on their pretty quick on their own, as i've learned
Dear Crabby,
I just turned 30, and my younger sister "kay-eat-eee" is in her late 20s. Since we were very young, I have felt inadequate compared  to her in terms of intelligence and looks. Plus mom always liked her best. Today, I'm a doctor but my kid sister wants to be one too. What should I do now?
— "The Other Sister" Dear "Unforgiving"
Let it go. I can assure you that you're not inferior to me, since you're a doctor. Stop worrying about your kid sister, and whether your mom liked her better. Live your own life, and if your sister wants to be a doctor too, that's great because there are a lot of sick people out there. You DID go into the profession to help people, right? So how will preventing your sister from being a doctor be helping people?
— Crabby, who worries more about idiots with superiority complexes than doctors with inferiority complexes. Like the president (for life?) of venezuela .. . .
Dear Crabby,
I've been doing it with this guy for 2 years, and he just told me he wants to do it with other people. I offered to keep doing it with him in the meantime, in hopes that he'll change his mind. But we haven't done it yet during the 2 months he's been doing it with other girls. So I guess my questions are: do I keep waiting for him to ask do it to me again? Do I have to ask him to do it to me? Or do I need to find someone else to do it with me?
— "Bad Night and Bad Luck"
Dear "Failure to Land",
If you want to ever do it again, you need to find someone new. And don't agree to do it with a guy who is doing it with other women. You can catch a disease that way. Plus, it spoils them.
— Crabby, who suspects you were absent during "girltalk 101" where everybody learns that when he says "i want to see other people" it really means "i don't want to see you, and i'm already seeing other people". either that or you're the dumber, less attractive sister.

Love your answers. Especially number 2. This woman has a built in excuse for confusing all Asians and black people. When someone says, "so, you're one of those people who think all blacks / Asians look alike?" She can say, "Well... yeah... I mean no. You see I have this rare disease called prosopagnosia. I'm sure you never heard of it, but it's a rare disorder where I am "face blind". Don't you remember last week when I mixed you up with Al (older white man)? Well, it's because of that!"

My husband is very patient with me when we rent movies. "Is that the bad guy?" "No, that's the good guy's father."

(Later) "Who's that guy?" "That's the good guy's father again." "Is that other guy the girl's boyfriend?" "No, that's the bad guy."

Sometimes he'll ask who some character is, and I'll answer, "How should I know?"

When I asked "Why do they call him Scarface?" (because he has a bloody great scar all down the side of his face...that I couldn't distinguish on our small television) that was when we realised I needed glasses. (I was in my early 20s)

Love this.

its sometimes hard to tell who to root for.  we saw "the hulk" this week (we're on vacation) and i was rooting for "evil hulk", partially because good hulk is played by ed norton, and partially because good hulk isn't all that good most of the time.

scar.  it was applied by the makeup artist.  and how does you like my accent?  does anyone believe i look or sound cuban?"

Crabby, it's down to you and Schuyler now for best answers to this weeks' bogus letters. Yours wins for best free-form use of alternative LW titles, but Schuyler's listing of psychotropic meds was impressvie.

The first stupid person award (here's your sign!) goes to someone on Prudie's staff for that ridiculous recycled Simpson's episode of a fake letter.

The second stupid person award (here's your sign!) goes to another of Prudie's staff for thumbing through the dictionary, finding a really odd illness, and placing an imaginary sufferer in a stupendously inappropriate job.

The third stupid person award (here's your sign!) has to go to the Prudie staffer who thought up "Kay-eat-me" as the much-envied youner, smarter, cuter sister. They lose more points for chickening out and changing the spelling.

The final stupid person award (here's your sign!) goes to the Prudie staffer that failed to even read her fake letter. Maybe this one is a group award (here are signs for all of you!) since, and this is kind of a critical thing that Dear Crabby pointed out, you're not dating someone when he is dating other people and you haven't seen him in two months.

when "dear abby" was alive, she had a staff of 3 or 4 "assistants" who would review the thousands of letters, then hybridize them into a few coherent themes, since any individual letter was unlikely to be written well enough to be comprehensible, let alone worthy of publication.

i read somewhere that the average american reads at the 5th grade level (hence the popularity of the reality TV show "are you smarter than a WalMart greeter").  of course people who actually read at the 5th grade level (or lower) weren't reading that article - they were watching the TV show instead.  and even if they'd read the report, it wouldn't have offended them.  its just some college professor insulting the values of middle america, after all . ..

its hard to tell how much hybridization takes place in the prudie letters.  i don't get the sense that "prudie the 2nd" has access to a support staff (or even a living wage) in the pursuit of her art.  and she's about dropped off the radar scope as far as her other slate series on reality based jobs goes.  

i imagine the most difficult part of writing prudie responses is finding letters which are funny enough and controversial enough to bring the readers back week after week.  that of course is how emily keeps her job ("your clicks are down this week, emily.  kick it up a notch, or you're dead meat")

thus, we descend away from the erudite atmosphere of the washington post (and some of the other slate columns) into the realm of the national inquirer.

ghosts.  tawdry affairs.  relatives behaving badly.  unrequited love.  soon it will be UFO sightings and detox summer camp, i imagine.

and prude may even be more popular (higher clicks) for it.  

slate, after all (and its parent company the Washington Post) are in a fight for their survival.  Slate only makes money from the ads, and despite the vaunted "power of the internet" they have grave difficulties matching their advertisers to their audience demographic.  

as i write this, i'm seen banner ads at the top and sidebar of prudie for things like

• "the endless pool" which is like an unheated hot tub with a current you must swim against, to lose flab if jogging isn't your thing
  
• "how to find affordable health insurance" which features picture of a black family, thus playing to racial stereotypes of americas economic oppression
• "body armor for your PC" which is an antivirus program not made by norton, symantic, or any other recognized expert in the field.  unfortantely, if you can read slate online, you probably already use norton or symantic to keep your PC operating.

i don't begrude prudie (and slate) their foibles.  they're playing to a demographic, trying to expand their readership.  they're fighting for their lives

baltimore aureole:

i read somewhere that the average american reads at the 5th grade level (hence the popularity of the reality TV show "are you smarter than a WalMart greeter"). of course people who actually read at the 5th grade level (or lower) weren't reading that article - they were watching the TV show instead. and even if they'd read the report, it wouldn't have offended them. its just some college professor insulting the values of middle america, after all . ..

SNL had on their "news" once a commentary asking people to help all the illiterates of America. A text was scrolling next to the commentator, along the lines of, come on, you know these people are lazy idiots who deserve to be exterminated. After all, the illiterates couldn't read it, anyway!

It makes me wonder if they are targeting a demographic that doesn't have computers and can't read/wouldn't understand Prudie's often lame efforts at smark-aleck remarks. If so, they are doomed to financial failure unless they are also targeting advertisers with that same mental capacity.

The old-fashioned soap opera formula (upper class/upper income characters with lower class/lower income problems) worked pretty well to sell soap. Back in the day, every stay-at-home mom used soap and moving customers to your brand was a big deal. I doubt that formula will work with antivirus programs, health insurance, or swimming pools.

Personally, I would find it monstrous if Prudie was anything but a series of amalgamated social and personal dilemmas vetted and constructed by a committee of interns. It's not just what she puts in the published letter, but what she leaves out that occasionally makes them such fertile ground for opinion and entertainment. Advice wise think she does pretty well at offering some resources and doing as little harm as possible. Who wants to hear LW #3 was found hanging in his garage? Some problems, if they are real, are so trivial and such a clear request for group support for their pompous and self important monitoring of paper plate consumption, wardrobe preference and wedding etiquette that really ridiculing them is pathetically satisfying.

Every time I participate in some thread initiated by a request for "real advice" I inevitably feel badly when once again it becomes clear that they are always the source of their own problem and quickly recreate their situation on the thread. Or, even sadder, the cases that are a cry for help from someone who needs more that a couple of posts to help get them going in the right direction. It's hopeless for anything real.

In my own real life, I hate personal gossip but I find the human condition fascinating. Some people relax with a crossword puzzle. I find this fake letter forum an outlet for all those unexpressed, usually only interesting to myself observations. I hate the advice. Love the opinion. And, I'm obviously not the only one.

I think I must have been around the track a couple more times than you because I know people that are actually as ignorant, pompous, and self-absorbed, as the people who supposedly write these letters. Maybe I just know dumber people than the ones you know. It's a puzzle but not worthy of much effort.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!

Tears in my eyes!!!!

quietwife:

Every time I participate in some thread initiated by a request for "real advice" I inevitably feel badly when once again it becomes clear that they are always the source of their own problem ...

Boy, is this ever it in a nutshell.