The Readers Weigh In…

As I mentioned in my last post, Carolyn is on vacation this week and has left us with a series of columns of compiled reader responses either to old letters or perhaps to questions she’s posed at large (it seems she’s been stockpiling the answers for just this occasion….sneaky!)

Anyway, I’ve mentioned before that there are differing opinions on letting your readers write your column. I think it’s annoying when columnists do it regularly, but I also think it’s a lot hard than just pulling a few excerpts from your inbox and calling it done. Others–ahem, SK–disagree. (Hmm….just dug back in the archives to see where I mentioned it, and it looks like maybe I never actually wrote that post. Suffice it to say, SK and I wrote in to Carolyn to ask her this question, but she didn’t respond).

Often when columnists go out of town, papers will just run old columns until they return, and I’d rather have fresh content–even if mostly from readers–than stuff I’ve seen before.

Anyway, I’m not sure if the examples Carolyn is publishing this week speak to the fact that she has the most thoughtful, eloquent readers ever (even if she didn’t publish me….le sigh…) or if they are proof of the fact that she (or her editors) put a great deal of time and effort into combing her mail, identifying the most thoughtful and eloquent contributions. Either way–don’t skip Carolyn this week just because she’s out of town. There are good ideas and fresh perspectives from her smart and well-spoken readers on a number of different topics!

Also, I am finding it refreshing and inspiring to hear from people who have come out on the other side of problems and have something useful to say about it, rather than only from people in the midst of trouble. Even though, obviously, that is what the columns are there for.

Gender Bender?

Just realized that in my last post, I assumed the irate subway rider was a woman when, in fact, there was nothing in the letter–no name, no signature, no contextual clues–to confirm that assumption.

To me, it usually feels pretty obvious whether the writer is a woman or a man, even if he or she doesn’t give any explicit indication–I wonder if it really is as unambiguous as it seems, or if I’m guessing wrong as often as right?

If I were the columnist, I think I’d have a hard time keeping those assumptions out of my answer in cases where the writer has chosen not to specify.

In Media Res-ume

For reasons unknown to me, many writers (OK, I need some help standardizing my vocabulary here…when you see “writer,” do you think, the person with the question, or the columnist? How should I differentiate between them in a concise and consistent way?)…

Anyway. For reasons unknown to me, before they even ask their question, many advice seekers feel the need to qualify themselves, proving that they deserve an answer, a better lot in life than they’ve got, and a shot at being printed (albeit under alias) in a syndicated column, by summarizing their perceived best qualities and major accomplishments.

I see this most often in the love columns, especially Tales from the Front. People griping about their horrific romantic experiences want to know why they, intelligent, solvent, reliable, honest, affectionate, hilarious, well-traveled, loving dog-owners and community leaders, etc., can’t find a decent date. This litany has the opposite effect on me than the seeker intends for it to have. I grow immediately suspicious and contemptuous, and can’t help but feel that the seeker doth protest too much. I sometimes write a critical letter about him or her to the columnist. But at least I understand why they’ve chosen to include their resume–it’s part of their question: “Given this, why not this?”

But today Amy featured a writer (oops, there I go again) who did the exact same thing, for no apparent reason. The advice seeker (there MUST be a better term out there) here is a middle-aged gay man in a long-term committed relationship. He has come out to everyone in his life except his elderly mother, and wonders whether or not he should, how he should approach the subject, and even wonders why his mother has never brought it up with him first.

Inexplicably, his letter started like this:

Dear Amy: I am a 45-year-old man, own my own business, sit on the boards of several charities, and enjoy sports and travel.

I am also gay, and I have been in a committed relationship for more than seven years.

Um…congratulations on managing to be both gay, an athlete, and an entrepreneur? Are we to assume that your active lifestyle has made you too busy to arrange this heart to heart with your mother?

I don’t see the connection here.

“Out, But Not Out” could have started his letter in its third paragraph (with his actual problem) and gotten right down to business. Considering that these letters are edited, I’m surprised Amy’s people, or the Trib‘s people, didn’t do it for him.

That he began his letter with a list of his accomplishments makes me wonder what he’s trying to make up for. His dishonesty toward his mother? His homosexuality?

Would his question be treated differently if he were not on the boards of several charities, or if he were not in a long-term relationship? Or does he just fear that it would be?

Blame the editor? I sure hope so….

Either all of Abby’s contributors are sitting at the window seat in their parents’ Martha’s Vineyard homes,writing with navy blue fountain pens, or Abby has a very awkward crew of editors, who are enforcing a very awkward means of creating consistency across her letters.

The vast majority of Abby letters, in their publicly printed state, make reference to the writer’s own parents as “Mother” and “Daddy.” Rarely “Mom,” and never simply “my mother.” This is a pretty old school thing, and my grandmother actually speaks about her parents this way–always Mother and Daddy. But it sounds strange in a newpaper–is it too familiar? or too pretentious? I can’t decide….can one be both?–and it sounds even stranger out of the mouths of babes, as in today’s column:

DEAR ABBY: I am 14 years old and the daughter of a successful businessman. Daddy recently announced that we have been invited to the bat mitzvah of the daughter of one of his co-workers. I don’t want to go.

The girl’s not anti-Semitic, it turns out, just a bit shy, a bit Catholic, and feeling uncomfortable and out of her element at a large Jewish celebration. Abby actually gives her some good advice about turning her discomfort into an advantage–seeking out someone friendly at the party to talk her through the traditions, etc.

But that intro. “Daddy?” “A successful businessman?” Yikes!

This kind of stuff makes me wonder if Abby’s editors are significantly shaping these letters–no matter the age or geographical location of the writer, they’re all in the same “voice”–or whether, instead, people write to Abby in a certain tone because of what they read. Are they adopting the speech conventions traditionally used in her column, hoping to make it into print?

Hmm…doubtful. Hey team Abby, back off, and let the people speak for themselves!