Straight Talker

By TAMALA EDWARDS

Any reader of advice columns knows the only thing more inane than the dilemmas people pose are the answers they get back. What passes for social wisdom is often either anachronistic blather written by columnists who remember the lindy hop; oversexed silliness pushed by magazines headlined "Your Best Orgasm Ever!"--for the millionth issue in a row; or wishy-washy New-Ageisms.

So it's understandable that Carolyn Hax, who writes "Tell Me About It," a syndicated Washington Post advice column for people under 30, has become the rage among readers within and well beyond that age group. Faced with the immemorial conundrums of love gone awry or astray, friendships and families come undone or the regular frustrations of living in a world with other people in it, Hax manages to offer advice that is simple, bracing and smart. To a displaced Alabaman letter writer tired of jokes deprecating the South, she recommends a laugh followed by the remark: "A redneck joke--how unique." To a young man who's not quite ready to be just friends with his ex, she counsels, "You don't have to hang out with anyone you don't want to hang out with, not until you acquire co-workers, in-laws or prison time."

Hax is a master of the art of telling it like it is. For instance: "Sometimes a guy prefers a couchful of football to spending the day out with you. Is that always so wrong?" Unlike Dr. Laura, Hax is only mean when it's absolutely necessary, but then it can be delicious. When an 18-year-old writes that her ex-boyfriend has taken up with some "slut," Hax fires back a lesson about name calling: "I'd go to the beach, but I have to answer some slut who wants my advice. Like how that felt? ... Accept that you hurt like hell, that you need time to mend, and resist the urge to do anything that would make your dignity sigh in despair."

Integral to Hax's winning way is how clear she is about her own deficiencies. Rather than pretend that she can fix problems with a paragraph, she is quick to recommend that people in real trouble get professional help. While other columnists sometimes sound as if they're writing from a high perch, Hax says her takes come from accepting her own flaws and embarrassments. When she snaps at readers to wrench their heads out of their navels, it's because she knows how self-absorbed she can be. Asked what shocks her most in her letters, she lists "the things that people do to each other, the amount of pain that people can tolerate, the amount of kindness they can show."

Daughter of a corporate planner and a secretary, Hax grew up the youngest of four sisters in Trumbull, Conn. After graduation from Harvard, she eventually made her way to the Washington Post as a copy editor. Four years ago, an editor lamented to Hax that she was being forced to take on an advice column. I could do that, Hax replied, and banged out a few sample columns that won over her bosses. Hax says her goal is to write the things your friends, neighbors and relatives would say frankly the first time rather than delicately 30 times over if they didn't have to live with you. Indeed, the only people Hax says she doesn't advise are her own family and friends. But with advice as good as hers, want to hazard a guess at who may be writing some of those anonymous queries?