If I may: advice columns, when they’re good, they’re GOOD. And by “good,” I mean not just good, wise, compassionate advice. I mean a good read, even for folks who are not struggling with the same issues as “Lovelorn” or “Confused.” Because at their best — best-written, that is — they are lovely and literate portraits of true, raw suffering and hope: a real-life micro-epistolary novel, a poetic precursor, even, to the talk and reality show. Some, over time, have been necessarily brief (so to speak), but now, thanks to Internet real-estate, they can flow into beautiful long-form, complete with backstory and metaphor and soaring free verse. I say “they,” but in fact, there are but few that fly as high as I describe. All of which is to say: Read Dear Sugar. Maybe start with this one, if it’s cool for you to cry at work. And then the rest. This, ladies and gentlemen, is advice; this, my peeps, is art. Read, weep, leap, cheer.

You’re welcome.

…here are some other love smarty-pantses who Tweet, courtesy of YourTango. (Follow BG here.)

Ashley Dupré, the “other woman” in the Spitzergate scandal (arguably engineered to punish the governor for trying to clean up the banking industry) has extended her brief stay in the public eye by dispensing homespun relationship advice in that classy journal, the NY Post.

We look forward to learning from the 24-year-old’s hard-won wisdom, and suggest that the Post doesn’t stop there. Why not hire Balloon Dad to write a parenting column? South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson can tackle etiquette questions, and Rod Blagojevich would be a natural for a sales technique blog. Or haircare tips.

All you wizened, still-not-“old“-yet-thank-you-very-much souls in the crowd will enjoy a mature chuckle over this list, brought to you by Tango, of bad-bordering-on-cheesy relationship mistakes (female variety).

Personally, I damn near find serenity in knowing how many of them I used to act out, having now graduated to a level of in-my-bones instinctiveness about what not to do. Such as: “Thinking our partners must be interested in everything we do, think and say”; “Putting so much energy into a fairy-tale romance that we’re disappointed with anything less“; and “Not asking for what we want in bed.” (Amen, sister!) They’re so familiar, they border on cliche — but cliches wouldn’t be cliches if they weren’t rooted in truth.

And so, if these mistakes are a thing of your present, not your past, allow me to offer up a little bon mot I’ve long held dear: “Cliches happen.” Spoken by a very wise, not-very-old, ridiculously sexy man.

Via Broadsheet:

It sounds like the opening scene of a promising Indian indie: 40 family members gather to agree on a suitable bride for an eligible son. As it turns out, says the son, there’s no suitable bride for me; I’m not interested in women at all. (Women’s clothing, yes. But not women.)That son — who was kicked out of the house that day — has now come back to live with that family as their daughter Rose, though her mother still hides her dresses and jewelry when she gets the chance. At the end of the day, though, there’s really no hiding at all anymore: Rose (just Rose) is now India’s first transgender talk show host. Her show, “Ippadikku Rose” (“Yours, Rose”), will be broadcast to up to 64 million people in the southern state of Tamil Nadu later this month. It is, according to the New York Times, “expected to cause a sensation.”

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