What type of person does it take to think, \u201cI\u2019d make a good advice columnist!\u201d<\/p>\n
I read Dan Savage\u2019s sex advice column off and on during college because it was published in the back of the free local newspaper that left in some of the restaurants and bus stops around town.<\/p>\n
I also tend to read advice columns in most papers I pick up, even if I\u2019ve never heard of the person writing them (or even if it\u2019s specialized advice, like only homebuying questions). I don\u2019t know why, but I find them addictive.<\/p>\n
But, what determines whether someone is qualified to give advice to other people? Well, I suppose being a good writer is a common thread; to communicate advice well, you have to communicate well in the first place.<\/p>\n
Beyond that, I think a person has to have a certain amount of confidence, of vanity, and of arrogance (or perhaps arrogance is too strong a word, but certainly strongly believing in your opinions). It\u2019s a bit like being a baseball umpire: you have to make your calls and you have to stand behind them, even if you don\u2019t necessarily have all the knowledge.<\/p>\n
And I think, like a lot of jobs that involve some amount of creativity, you need a certain X factor. A certain charisma, charm, or simply empathy. Something that both makes you \u201ceasy to talk to\u201d and stand out from all those other advice columnist.<\/p>\n
But, what do I know? I\u2019m not an advice columnist, and I certainly don\u2019t feel qualified to give advice columnists advice on what they should and shouldn\u2019t be doing. I just think it\u2019s rather revealing what advice columnists say.<\/p>\n
Because, in the end, every time you give someone advice about a certain situation or problem, it reveals a tiny bit more about yourself. Until, after years of writing answers to life\u2019s many questions, you\u2019re standing in front of all of your readers, naked.<\/p>\n
Metaphorically, of course.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What type of person does it take to think, \u201cI\u2019d make a good advice columnist!\u201d I read Dan Savage\u2019s sex advice column off and on during college because it was published in the back of the free local newspaper that left in some of the restaurants and bus stops around town. I also tend to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[137,136,81],"class_list":["post-285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-year26","tag-advice","tag-newspaper","tag-writing","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.scott-n-katie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.scott-n-katie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.scott-n-katie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.scott-n-katie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.scott-n-katie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.scott-n-katie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.scott-n-katie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.scott-n-katie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.scott-n-katie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}