Welcome to Dear Prudence. I'm your prudence, Janay Desmond Harris. This week we'll be

discussing how to decline a colleague's invitation to dinner, when it's okay to ghost a friend,

and whether it's possible to stay positive about finding love when you're completely burned

out on dating apps. Here to help me out today is the writer, professor, and commentator

Roxanne Gay. She's the author of books including New York Times Best Sellers, Bad Feminists

and Hunger, and she writes the newsletter The Audacity. She gives advice on professional

dilemmas as the New York Times' work friend columnist. Welcome Roxanne, thank you so much

for being here. Thank you so much for having me, Janay. I'm excited. I want to start off

by asking you for one piece of unsolicited advice. Unsolicited advice is terrible, so I guess

my one piece of advice would be don't offer unsolicited advice. Fair, but it's very hard

not to, right? I can barely control myself. I just love giving advice so much. Me too.

It's like, yeah, I'm totally ready to give you advice. I mean, we're both lucky that we

do it professionally, but that doesn't stop me from still wanting to just weigh in unprompted

all across my life. It's never a deterrent. It's always like, I see you really doing something

that's not good. Let me help you. And generally people are like, I'm good. I want to

fuck up. Thanks. Right. The good reason not too is that you're not responsible if things

go awry. Correct. Because sometimes you give advice and people actually don't really

want advice when they ask for advice. I think that they want their opinion or the decision

they've already made to be affirmed. And if you don't affirm that decision with your

advice, then, you know, it's awkward. Absolutely. All right. Well, Roxanne and I will dive

into questions and give solicited advice after a short break. Can't get enough dear

prudence, then you should definitely join Slate Plus Slate's membership program. You'll

...