Carolyn Hax, Tell Me About It

Carolyn Hax starts her book Tell Me About It: Lying, Sulking, Getting Fat… and 56 Other Things Not to Do While Looking for Love with with the advice that the reader is wrong in attempting to succeed at romance by reading any book, including hers! This is her way of combating people’s erroneous approaches to romance by the method of obeying “the rules of romance” or just imitating what others have found to be successful. She guides the reader toward identifying not only the external facts of his (I use “his” in a generic sense — it could be her too) circumstance but also his inner most romantic yearnings — and then encourages him to be creative/inventive in combining these two in a tangible form in reality. Contrast her approach with the prevalent approaches such as guidance to minutiae (flutter your eyes lids, put your hand there for 5 seconds and then do this and that for 10 seconds etc.), guidance by commandments (do this since the bible or the Victorians says so), guidance by nothing (do whatever feels right).

Since the early part of this year, I have been reading her daily column at The Washington Post. Her responses to readers’ questions on relationships demonstrate time and again her skill at exposing to her readers the external and internal facts of any relationship issue (which usually makes the advice that follows just an icing on the cake).

I could be wrong, but I believe she acquired and developed her knowledge and skill years ago primarily to help herself with her own romance, and has since kept expanding and translating her knowledge and skill into a profession. At The Washington Post, besides her daily column, she has a weekly chat session and a forum (but I have not spent time on these two features).

If you appreciate the nature of the advice on dating by Marilyn Monroe and by Ayn Rand, then be sure to check out Carolyn Hax too!

PS: As I was about to publish this post, I found this write up of her.

Tags: Carolyn Hax, Tell Me About It, relationship, love, dating, advice

Filed under: ShoutOut.

intransigent adjective

: characterized by refusal to compromise or to abandon an extreme position or attitude : uncompromising

Example

Ms. Baxter was intransigent about her most famous rule: no gum or candy in her classroom unless you'd brought enough to share with everybody.

Did you know?

English speakers borrowed "intransigent" in the 19th century from Spanish "intransigente" ("uncompromising"), itself a combination of the familiar prefix "in-" ("not") and "transigente" ("willing to compromise"). "Transigente" comes from the Spanish verb "transigir" ("to compromise"), which in turn comes from Latin "transigere" ("to come to an agreement"). The French have a similar verb, "transiger," which also means "to compromise." You may wonder if the word "transigent" exists in English, and the answer is "not really." It has seen occasional use, but it is not well established. There is, however, one other common English word that traces from Latin "transigere": "transact," meaning "to conduct (business)."

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