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The Much-heralded Return Of Advice Time
I love Advice Time. I love the questions, I love the answers, I love how diligent people have become at coming back to the thread to find and address later questions to people to don’t feel like their post is left all alone and advice-less. I’ve spent a fair amount of time thinking about what makes it so enjoyable, without much of a clear answer other than “people like helping each other!”
But yesterday I was reading Vauhini Vara’s Searches, a truly spectacular book on how the internet has capitalized on our desire for connection, and this sentence walloped me: “chat rooms had prepared us for what the internet was becoming — a place where, anonymized and disembodied, we could seek answers to our truest questions.”
That’s the heart of it, isn’t it — this is a space for your truest questions. And “truest” can mean so many things: like, right now, I’m really wondering how difficult it actually is to paint my (already painted) stairs, and I need someone who’s done it before to talk me through it (or why I should pay someone else to do it). Maybe your truest question, right now, has to do with your career, a friendship, how to get your inbox to do something, or what you should cook with this aging head of broccoli in the fridge.
And unlike Google or ChatGPT, when you ask these questions, you’ll have a slew of people with varied but helpful opinions, perspectives, wisdom, and actionable ideas, ready to respond. It’s wonderfully human, all of it.
A very incomplete list of things of Advice Time subjects:
How do you do money with your partner
How do I deal with these gnats on my houseplants
What sort of person do I need to call for [INSERT HOUSE PROBLEM HERE]
Where do you donate your books
How do I clean this stupid rug
My kid liked [this book] what similar books might they like
Where are we buying swimsuits these days
How do I convince my doctor I need a colonoscopy
You get the picture. So ask away — and remember that this only works if you’re willing to help answer, too. Also: come back in a few hours, tomorrow, whenever, and sort the comments for “Newest First” so you can help people who don’t get here right away, because we don’t this to be a space where you can only get advice if you’re sitting at your computer at the random minute I decide to send this email.
As always, this is a private, subscriber-only space; don’t be butts when offering advice to strangers and let’s keep this one of the good places on the internet.
