Response to response

Very much agreed, but advice needn't be advice. Again, I'd still steer away from unsolicited, especially in the personal realm. See this letter to Carolyn, especially her response: digging at someone is not helpful. Mom's staring at my middle, speechless, and then not speechless but fully expressive of her awe at how it's grown, has achieved nothing in the way of shrinking the offending bulge.

I'm not suggesting that you say to your sister, instead of "He didn't call you for 3 weeks after the first date, no, don't go out with him again!", "He didn't call you for 3 weeks after the first date, he's just not that into you," but that's a little bit better: it's a statement of fact rather than something she "should" do, and "should" is part of the problem. But I agree: eventually she'll figure that out for herself.

I love career advice--I don't think you're ever at a point where you can get enough--but there's as much bad advice out there as there is good. The difference is, it's not as personal and it usually is generalized into facts, rather than directives, so, for both reasons, people take it better.

Re: the gray, I completely agree. It's a part of what makes me unique, and more people--including hairstylists--have told me not to touch it. It's not that I'm "going gray"--I've had the same gray hair for over ten years. But I usually bristle when people do direct me to dye it, and yet, I didn't, because it was said in context (i.e. my friends believed that men my age would be under the impression that I was much older because of the gray), rather than as a 'you should do this.'

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No roundup this morning--just one column worth sharing. Gail Collins expresses her frustration with politics as usual.