Good advice

One day when I, RJ Battles, was around 8 or 9, I came across Dear Abby and Ann Landers in our local paper. I liked them so much that I went into our garage to read all the columns from the stack of old papers.

Right away I realized that I would do very well with my own advice column. Ann and Abby's answers were always bullshit and I could've done much better. The only column I liked and agreed with was Dr. Ruth's.

Then I found and liked Miss Manners's column, which I found in 2000. This after coming across her book from the 70s, Miss Manners's Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior. That book, which is a collection of past questions and answers along with new essays on various subjects, is fucking awesome. She's so funny and clever and I love when people write in thinking someone else has done something rude but it turns iout that they themselves have been the rude ones. The one thing that annoys me is when letter-writers copy Miss Manners's writing style and try to sound like her. They end up sounding like assholes.

Anyway, one thing I've learned other people is that people who are trustworthy are trusting of others, and shady people are suspicious of everyone else- people tend to think that other people are basically like them.

Another thing I've learned is is that when you want to discover someone's true intentions is to ignore what they say and look at what they actually do. I think the saying is "Actions speak louder than words". It's true.

It's always been my dream to have my own advice column and, for a while, I had one. It was on a music forum.

I'd like to have one here. I think I might've tried before, but it was probably before I had any readers. Anyway, if you have a problem, Ask RJ.