Sad Bastard of the Week: A tribute to Lucinda Rosenfeld

Posted at 8:23 AM Oct 27, 2009

By Andrea Grimes

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Sometimes, a girl just wants some bad, judgey advice. And up until now, you probably had to be friends with someone who actively hated you to get it. Not anymore, baby! Not now that Lucinda Rosenfeld is writing an "advice" column on Slate's DoubleX.com!

Those of us who've been following her column since its inception have had inklings all along, though the advice column shit hit the advice column fan a couple of weeks ago when a woman who was drugged at a bar and had to go to the emergency room wrote into "Friend Or Foe." Rosenfeld basically called her a drinky slut who shouldn't expect her friends to help her out. The issue has already been tackled on other blogs, so I won't rehash it here. But suffice to say this: after the debacle, Rosenfeld was compelled to issue what can, at best, be called an "apology." You know, one of those "I'm sorry this upsets you, not sorry that I did it," apologies.

But Rosenfeld's been serving up steaming piles of adviceshit for a while now, so while I was appalled at her response to the drugged woman, I'm not at all surprised. Here are a few of my favorite Rosenfeld gems.

To the woman who has ambivalent feelings about being in her 30s and childless, while her friends all have babies:

"All I can say is that, if you really want it to happen, your turn will come. You shouldn't assume that family life will come between you and your mom friends, either. After I had my tiny terrorists--at (please note) the "advanced maternal ages" of 36 and 38--I actually found myself more inclined to socialize with my friends who didn't have kids."

That's right! If you really want to have kids, it will happen for you. I don't know what's wrong with all those infertile people. They probably don't want it bad enough. I did! I wanted it so bad I had a kid at 38! Please, hold your applause.

To the woman whose friend's fiance has had gay dalliances in the past and never sleeps with his soon-to-be-wife:

"Nor will she be the first straight woman to marry a gay man. Or a bisexual man, or whatever. If Sex and the City taught us anything, it was that many women secretly prefer the company of gay husbands to straight ones. (Fewer Super Bowl parties, more shopping expeditions, anyone?)"

BECAUSE GAY MEN AND STRAIGHT WOMEN LOOOOOOOOOOOVE SHOPPING AND HATE SPORTS AMIRIGHT!?!?!??! If Sex and the City taught us anything, it's that too many people think it's something that has taught us anything.

To the woman who wants to know why her friends keep breaking up with her, Rosenfeld advised that the letter writer definitely not quit kvetching about her shitty life, because that is what ladies do!  

"Regarding moaning, is this not the great, guilty pleasure of women everywhere? Especially working mothers with only semihelpful helpful husbands/boyfriends/partners whom they long to divorce at least once a day? Looking at my own life, I'd have to say that my entire relationship with my friend J. is constructed out of mutual kvetching about our families--and we couldn't be closer."

Women! When they're not shopping with their gay boyfriends, they're bitching and moaning! Because the men in their life are such drags! Oh, men! Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em! Let's go eat chocolate and get waxed and get our husbands to buy us diamonds and furs and other things that all ladies love!