Hullo everyone,

A shortish Fem Friday this week, but I hope one that is useful and fun.

DO YOU WANT to read a history of agony aunts? I can’t think of anything more satisfying right now than putting a flimsy veneer of “interest in history” over a much less elevated pleasure, “interest in other people’s problems”. Get yrself a nice cup of tea and settle in for this sort of action:

The pre-Victorian agony aunts and uncles could be surprisingly liberal and outspoken. Dunton once advised a woman fearing a lonely old age to get herself down to the docks when the fleet was in and hook a sex-starved sailor. Nothing simpler. Others campaigned for better rights for deserted wives and other mistreated women. The Victorians, of course, were working under a very different regime, and every syllable of their responses to readers' queries rings with the repressive certainty of the age. "You have foolishly lent yourself to a clandestine courtship and must withdraw from it promptly," the anonymous aunt in the London Journal in 1857 snaps. "The serpent found his way into Eden, and why not into the park adjoining your father's house? Do not add guilty weakness to your folly."

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2009/nov/13/agony-aunts

Here’s a review of an advice book for how to be a nice friend to people who are going through awful times! It sounds great and I’m surprised it didn’t exist before:

Even when it was well intentioned, I grew to hate people asking me how I was. […] Nothing felt right. But “how are you, today?” was a different thing entirely. It’s an acknowledgment of what you’re going through that doesn’t force you to do too much heavy-lifting. When people asked that, I found myself answering easily: I’d mention trouble sleeping, I’d talk about stumbling back into work, or share something about my brother that had come up during the day. In turn, these more tangible answers gave the asker a better foothold. People would recommend a great TV show for late nights, promise to send an article on something I was hoping to write about, or simply nod compassionately.

http://nymag.com/thecut/2017/02/how-to-help-a-friend-whos-going-through-something-horrible.html

If you have smaller problems – specifically the smaller problem of being a bit worried about a relationship – please also enjoy this flowchart to guide you through those exciting but also difficult early days:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/ms_bracken/4114940646/sizes/o/

Have a super weekend,

Alex.