Secrets Of An Agony Aunt

Or, 'Why I hate advice'

Every fortnight I sit down to write an agony aunt column for Vogue, and every time, usually about a paragraph in, I feel a sharp scratch of anxiety. Because - I hate advice. I fucking hate it. And I know that might sound unfortunate from someone who writes an advice column, but it’s true. It’s not advice itself that is the issue for me though, it’s the fact that advice has become so normalised, so much a part of our culture (with its influencers recommending hair serums on a Monday and insurrection on a Tuesday, and its authors selling out theatres telling audiences how to orgasm as a feminist) that it maintains the lie there is always a correct way to be.

And beyond that, there is the anxious thought, as I write, of how, honestly, dare I? How dare I, old Eva Wiseman, a bag of broken biscuits, a pink sack of flaws, flesh and unrest, try and tell anybody else how to be? How should I know if this letter writer is being ghosted, how should I know whether she should invite her partner’s ex to their wedding? I’m not one of those women who knows things, who puts their hand on your arm and tells you where to find the very best sandwich in London or the correct temperature for a martini or when’s the right time to have a baby. These people exist and I am in awe of them, but I am not one of them. In real life I am unsure and stumbling, and get tied up in things like: people want different things from a sandwich? In things like: there are a thousand different ways to live?

And yet, I have always loved reading advice columns and I still love writing them. Even the anxiety is good - it reminds me I’ve not yet gone full bastard. Before Vogue I wrote an agony aunt column for iD, and when I was still at art college I wrote an anonymous advice column for a kinky magazine called Bizarre, where the letters were significantly more blue: I once had to ask a doctor to weigh in on a reader’s question, “Is it possible to go blind from someone ejaculating in your eyes?” and that doctor was my dad.

On my phone I have a picture of advice cuttings from Jackie magazine’s agony aunts Cathy and Claire in the 1970s. “Dear Kerry,” begins one. “The thing is not to give your stepfather any chance to be alone with you. When you go to bed, put a chair in front of the door. Even if he can still open it, the noise will put him off. Go out whenever you have a chance. Let’s hope he soon starts behaving better. Yours, Cathy & Claire.” I mean, this is real advice isn’t it. This isn’t your modern ‘turn off the internet and go for a walk’ shit, this is: here is how to stay alive. Then, “Dear Janice, There’s absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t fall in love with your cousin. Why not just relax and enjoy it? Yours, Cathy & Claire.” Ta!

Still, every time I start writing an advice column a silent screen listing all my failures plays before my eyes, and I must shake my head and carry on, by remembering two things.