On Advice Is Futile
@Niko Bellic Yeah, it's the gut. One of my favorite lines from High Fidelity (the movie, I actually haven't read the book), was when the John Cusack character recaps his romantic history and then is like, "I'm beginning to think my guts are full of shit." That's basically how I feel, so maybe I fall into the category of bad decision makers? Can that be cured? That's what the agonizing is all about.
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On Advice Is Futile
@Leon So you're able to just make a decision and go with it now? That's actually impressive. I can do that with some things, but for the big ones, I'm sort of trapped in that pattern. I attribute this to massive insecurity and a deep level of distrust in my own gut, so...maybe I should work on that. :)
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On Advice Is Futile
As a classic overthinker (I assume 99% of Awl readers are too), I sometimes agonize so intensely over a decision that I become completely out of touch with my gut, and with what I want to do in general for reasons that go beyond reason and mostly have to do with intuition and desire. And it can take someone telling me what I should do to remind me of where I stand. Like I need to have advice so that I can feel my own reaction to it, because that's the only way for me to really know what I truly want. And that's why I like to read advice columns. They help me understand what I think.
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On Ask Polly: I Am Haunted By Toxic Troublemakers From My Past
I weep for the first letter writer's children. Someone start a therapy fund quick.
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On Villainous Hair
Fantastic. I'd add Regina George (Mean Girls) to the list of villains with unnaturally blond hair.
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On Bad News Brenda
Love this too. I lived a rejiggered version of the story - I had the big family but the bad news friends gravitated toward me.
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On Becoming Joan Didion
Feeling very unclear on what the point of the "First Draft" series is. Love learning anything about Didion, but wish I understood what the writer was trying to say here, if anything.
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On Mad Men's Megan Draper Reads (And Wears) 1966 'Vogue'
Makes me happy to see you give Tom and Lorenzo a shout out. Consistently the best Mad Men analysis anywhere.
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On A Treasury of the World's Worst Online Dating Stories
@iantenna sadly, it doesn't make things any easier.
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On Welcome To The New American Housing Bubble (In Coastal Elite Cities)
I'm kind of, sort of in the market in LA, and ugh. While it's not as bad as SF, it's pretty nuts. And even if we're still in a bubble, will houses in the city proper ever really depreciate? In the valley and inland empire, sure. But everywhere else just seems to slowly continue to gentrify.