Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. Now we're going to do something we've never done before, a new way to share advice on this show. Many of you know we do advice segments from time to time. We've done health advice of various kinds, financial advice, parenting advice. We sometimes play a game we call advice roulette where callers chosen at random asked each other for advice, but today, something new that I hope will be fun, and really interesting, and helpful to some of you.

Some of you probably know that Slate does this much better than we do. They have an ongoing feature on their website, and in a podcast called Dear Prudence. People write in their advice questions and Prudie, who in real life is Jenée Desmond-Harris, responds with advice in her column on Slate or on the Dear Prudence podcast. She's also a contributing writer for The New York Times often on advice-related topics.

This month, Jenée and I are teaming up. Three Thursdays on this show, and later this month, I'll be on the Dear Prudence podcast with her as Jenée does usually invite a non-expert partner along for the ride there. On both our shows, we'll take a few of your dilemmas, and see if we can be of some help. This show, being the call-in show that it is, we're also going to invite you to weigh in on the two advice questions that we will try to answer in this segment today. Hold your calls for now, of course, until you hear the question, but please join me in welcoming Dear Prudence aka Jenée Desmond-Harris. Hi, Jenée. I am so excited about this. Welcome to WNYC.

Jenée Desmond-Harris: Hi, Brian. Thank you so much for having me on. I'm excited too and a little nervous. I've never done this live before, so we'll see what happens.

Brian Lehrer: Introduce yourself to the listeners a little bit. I don't give advice for a living really, but you do. I'll tell the listeners that your background is mostly in journalism. You've been an opinion page editor for The New York Times, and a writer on race and politics for Vox. I see you went to law school. How'd you end up doing this?

Jenée Desmond-Harris: Yes, I graduated from Harvard Law School, and I practiced at a big firm in D.C. for three or four years. Like many law firm associates, I wasn't having a lot of fun or getting a lot of satisfaction from that job, so I merged into journalism. Like you said, I mostly did opinion writing, then I moved into editing.

When Slate reached out to me about this job and the opening for Dear Prudence, I thought to myself, "Well, if I start giving people advice about these petty disputes with their neighbors, and someone in the neighborhood has a dog pooping in their yard, or they want to break up with their boyfriend, can I ever go back to doing really serious journalism?" A friend of mine said, "Well, what other job would you want in journalism," and I really didn't know.

It's just been so much fun. I enjoy reading letters so much. I enjoy thinking about the issues they raise so much because I think they're entertaining, and they also touch on a lot of really universal topics that I hope are helpful to a lot of readers to hear about. It's been a good time, and I can't wait to get into these letters.

Brian Lehrer: One more general question before we dive in. Do you have certain approaches to giving advice that you would share in advance? Did you study up on how to give advice since you didn't go to school for psychology, you went to school for law, that kind of thing, or should we just dive in?

Jenée Desmond-Harris: Well, I can say that one principle I really tried to go by is that I aim to give advice that people can and will actually implement. Many times, the advice that's the most obvious isn't something that I think most people would feel comfortable doing. This will come up, I think, in some of the letters we discuss. I really tried to ask myself, if I were the letter writer, and I received this advice, is it something that I could see myself actually doing as a flawed human being with all of the many issues we all have?

Brian Lehrer: All right flawed human beings in our audience. Some of you know, we invited you to write in with your question seeking advice for this series, and we've picked two letters from our mailbag for today. Let's get to the first one. As you will hear, it's a dilemma that many a person in New York City or an apartment living anywhere, I guess, may have faced or may be facing now. We've recorded the letter, and here it goes.

Speaker 3: Dear Prudence, I live in a luxury high-rise condo in Brooklyn. A few of our neighbors are in the habit of storing various items in our common hallway, ranging from doormats to stacks of empty watercooler jugs to baby strollers including one two feet from my door. Beyond the fact that they're unsightly, they represent a violation of New York City Fire Code. Not wanting to offend people we see on a daily basis, we notified building management, and they have sent a few email reminders to residents, but to no avail. Should I accept this as a fact of life in a building that is not a co-op and therefore lacks a shareholders' board of rule enforcers, or should I somehow escalate my concerns?

Brian Lehrer: All right, there you have it. The Brooklyn condo unsightly and maybe dangerous stuff in the hallway problem. Listeners, what advice would you give this letter writer about this situation? Remember, we're not looking for judgments like you're right, the other person is wrong, whatever. Though, I guess that could be a component of advice, but at least it should end with advice, and advice should be central to solving the problem for everybody. 212-433-WNYC, if you want to weigh in, 212-433-9692. Jenée, want to go first? Where would you start with this one?

Jenée Desmond-Harris: Sure. I just thought I would ask you first if you agree with me about this. I feel comfortable saying that this letter is really about the items being unsightly and annoying to look at. The letter writer has included the potential fire code violation, but I don't think that's really the concern here. Do you?

Brian Lehrer: I agree with you. We did not discuss this in advance, but what I would say first to the letter writer is that you might ask yourself, is this really about the potential fire hazard at all versus your personal distaste for clutter? I guess I would admit that for me, I might be permissive about making the hallway useful, and use it as everyone's vestibule to the extent that it is actually safe, especially in buildings where people don't have luxury apartments.

Maybe everyone's going to pounce on me for being at all laissez-faire or utilitarian about this, and I certainly don't want to poo-poo fire hazards. I know my building management, Jenée, would never stand for what the listener described. They'd be on you so fast you'd think there was already a fire, but I'm just being honest about my starting point. It sounds like you're in roughly the same place.

Jenée Desmond-Harris: I am. I always like to start off by affirming to people who ask her advice that they can do the most adversarial and extreme thing. Letter writer, yes, you have the right to contact the City, fill out a fire hazard complaint form and really get aggressive with this.

I want to suggest that making your neighbor's life hell, while it's your right, is not what's going to lead to the best results for you. I encourage thinking about it this way. When you're living in really close quarters with people, the best way to resolve conflict is not normally going to be to dig your heels in and fight for your rights because you have to live near these people potentially forever.

One thing to think about might be whether you might someday need the same flexibility and understanding from them that they're asking of you. Is there a chance that maybe you'll have a baby who cries a lot, or you'll have a loud party? Maybe you'll want to do home workouts that make the floor shake a little bit. Maybe you might cook food that everyone can smell. I just think it's tricky.

We get a lot of letters from people about sharing space, whether it's with neighbors next door, in another house, in an apartment, roommates. It's really hard, and I think it's easier if you try to create a sense of community and understanding rather than everyone digging their heels in and fighting for what they think they deserve.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, but to be a little more supportive to the letter writer, one thing that jumps out at me about this, as the writer describes it, is that it's more than one person, it sounds like, who's leaving stuff in the hallway. To me, that makes this a different situation than if it was just one neighbor on the floor. Unlike in some buildings, maybe there's a culture of complacency in the building about this particular rule.

I would suspect that you're not the only person on your floor or in your building who feels the way you do about how the hallway is being used. Maybe rather than go right to the neighbors who were leaving the things out, since you want to avoid conflict because the writer sounds kind of conflict-averse, doesn't want to alienate the neighbors who are causing the person annoyance, you could go first to other neighbors who are not leaving things out and see if you find some allies. Then maybe a few of you in community could respectfully approach the others who share the hallway, maybe in a group note quietly slipped under their doors and asking nicely, but personally, different from the institutional email that they may have seen from management that the letter describes. Who knows? Maybe this would move them.

Jenée Desmond-Harris: I love that you mentioned the word community because I actually think this could represent an opportunity to create a feeling of community in the building that doesn't exist right now. Here's a bold suggestion. Have a party.

Brian Lehrer: [laughs]

Jenée Desmond-Harris: I think the letter writer should have everyone in the building over, get out some wine and cheese, a six-pack of beer, cake, whatever, and just get to know these people a little bit. Like I said before, you're living in such close quarters with them, it's going to continue to be weird, and there's going to continue to be conflict if you don't actually know each other.

I have this suspicion that once you actually get to know these people, you might have a little more empathy for what they're going through and be a little more tolerant of their clutter. If you're saying, "There's Janice, she's dealing with a health issue, she's woo woo, she gets all this alkaline water delivered, and that's why the jugs are outside her door," or, "That's Mary and her baby just went to daycare, and she's a working mom, and she's got to take the stroller on the subway every day, it's really tough," that might make you feel a little more understanding and less aggrieved. The junk might become more a part of people's stories than just something that's there annoying you.

Brian Lehrer: Right. It does also depend, I think, regarding how strict people should be about having to take things in, the situation of the other neighbors on the hallway. I'll tell you, for example, I know an elderly couple, who may or may not be my parents, who both use walkers. In their building, the halls are narrow enough that if apartments on both sides of the hall even had door mats down, and the letter writer did bring up door mats as one of the offending things, if they even had doormats down, which I don't think is allowed in my parents' building, I don't know if they could roll their way to the elevator on flat enough ground.

Jenée Desmond-Harris: Okay, but again, I didn't hear the letter writer saying, "I can't roll my walker." Maybe you're right. Some of the neighbors might have more serious issues, but even so-

Brian Lehrer: I'm just saying it depends.

Jenée Desmond-Harris: -I'm going to continue to push for the party because even if you do want to ask these people to bring their things inside, I think that will be an easier and more productive conversation if you're their friend and you're someone they know rather than the neighbor who's, up until now, just been contacting management to get in touch with them.

Brian Lehrer: Before we take some calls, and a lot of people are calling in on this situation, I just want to mention one last piece of advice that I am not actually suggesting, but that might make the letter writer feel good to fantasize about. Jenée, I talked about this case with a friend of mine last night, and they suggested rather than getting aggressive, you could get passive-aggressive. What does that mean? They said if you--

Jenée Desmond-Harris: Pile up all your stuff.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, exactly. If your neighbor's leaving a stroller in front of your apartment, and that bothers you, you put out your bicycle in front of theirs or something else that gives them a dose of their own medicine and makes the hallway situation so intolerably cluttered that maybe even they will be bothered enough to bring it up as a problem with you. [laughs]

Jenée Desmond-Harris: I love it. You can store your Christmas tree out there in the hall and see what happens.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, that's right. I got a good laugh from my vindictive passive-aggressive friend bringing that up, and I thought you might too and everybody might. My opinion is, don't actually do that, especially if you're really a conflict-averse person.

Let's take a phone call, let's see what the folks listening to this conversation think. You do this on Dear Prudence, right? On the website version, you let your community in as well, right?

Jenée Desmond-Harris: Yes, in the column, about once a week I reach out to our readers to see what they think about a question that I find really tough to answer. We just think that's part of modern advice. None of us make choices without the internet at this point in life, so why not poke around and see what others think?

Brian Lehrer: By the way, listener texts. "I live in a [unintelligible 00:13:43] co-op and I can assure you that co-ops only enforce rules to the extent that they want to. Our hallways are filled with junk, and the rules lack teeth I'd report to city authorities." There's the most aggressive of anybody, like call the cops, or 311. Louise in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Louise.

Louise: Hello, Brian. Okay, I'm a little nervous about this, even though I've called you many times because I'm speaking on behalf of my husband who teaches fire safety for the FDNY. He's a retired lieutenant. We feel very strongly about this fire safety issue. He goes into buildings where the hallways may be cluttered and when he speaks to people, he tells them of the intense danger in the event of fire that can not only cause problems for the residents, but for the firefighters coming in to try to save people's lives. I really take issue with making light of this because then the fire department is held responsible when these problems occur.

The other issue is that my daughter has two children. She has two strollers. She lives in a co-op in Westchester. I know the rules are different. Both of her strollers are in her apartment. She cannot leave them in the hallway. My son could not leave boots in his hallway which was at the very end. His apartment was at the very end. It didn't interfere with anyone. He rented in Brooklyn. These are rules that have to be followed for the safety of people, for the safety of the first responders. I think it should be taken seriously.

Brian Lehrer: Take me more into how it actually comes up in the event of a fire because I think the first thing that maybe I thought of, Jenée can speak for herself, is the important thing is that there be enough clearance that anybody on that hallway be able to get out without being blocked and down the stairwell or whatever the thing is. Is there more to it than that?

Louise: Brian, think about smoke. Think about smoke in the hallway when you cannot see. Think about firefighters coming in with masks on their faces and smoke in the hallway and getting tripped up with hoses, and everything else getting caught in the things that are in the hallway, and injuries, and people maybe falling. Think about your parents that might fall in the hallway, and now they're trapped and they can't get out. That's the concern when they teach fire safety, to think about your neighbor. You want to talk about community. Think about the safety of your neighbor.

Brian Lehrer: Louise, thank you very, very much.

Louise: That's all I have.

Brian Lehrer: She brought up good points there right, Jenée, including the tripping hazard, and that if there is a fire and the hallway is filled with smoke, maybe you're not seeing the stuff as clearly as you might in normal times, so has to be taken seriously.

Jenée Desmond-Harris: I have to say I did minimize the fire hazard issue, and I was a little bit convinced by the caller. She made a really strong case.

Brian Lehrer: The more I thought about it also, I started to think that different buildings are different because the writer said that this is a luxury condo, and so there's probably enough space in the stroller owner's apartment, certainly the one who's putting the water jugs out, but probably even in the stroller owner's apartment to keep the stroller somewhere for these few years, or they can probably afford a really good folding or collapsible stroller. I know those are the only kinds that we ever used, but not in a luxury building. We would never have imposed on our neighbors by turning the hallway into stroller parking. You can express sympathy for how hard it is to manage all this stuff parents of young kids have to manage, strollers, car seats, front packs, bottles, and snacks, whatever it is in their case. There is a difference between expressing sympathy and telling a luxury condo owner that they can indulge whatever sense of entitlement that they may feel being in that economic class.

Jenée Desmond-Harris: I hear that. I'm a parent of a young child too. I live in a two-bedroom townhome, so I probably have more space than most New York City condos. I'm in California. I would have no idea where to put my stroller in my home. It would definitely be in the way. Better to have an obstacle to walk over every day than to put my neighbors at risk in the case of a fire. That's something to think about.

Brian Lehrer: Let me take another caller who's going to go a whole other way with this, I think. Marcia in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Marcia.

Mercia: Good morning. Thanks, Brian. I am a tenant advocate. Just to let you know, I also managed over 200 rent-stabilized units from my grandparents in the '70s here in Brooklyn, so I'm aware of the fire hazard issues. However, I am often made aware in my advocacy of how buildings that have a combination of recently condoed and or co-oped and rent-stabilized tenants utilize these rules as part of their harassment strategy to get rent-stabilized tenants out so they can have access to those units.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting.

Mercia: It's happening in my building, and it's happened in three adjacent buildings to my building. I'll just share my anecdote of it personally that I have dossiers of over 20 tenants and other buildings in, yes, so-called progressive Park Slope where this has gone on.

In my case, we would leave my groceries under the steps where you couldn't see them and they were out of the way until I could get someone to help walk me up to my third-floor apartment since my lung cancer. At that point, the contractor who bought one of the first condos, and was hired by the now AWOL landlord, would walk in and tell the super to remove things that were not part of the condo owners, while he stored under the stairs two or three strollers.

Once, when my belongings were taken, I decided to file a police report. The police came. The super had admitted petty larceny, but learning their new de-escalation techniques, of which you know I would definitely approve, they didn't want me to file a report, but to allow them to return my belongings. I agreed with them because I want to live my principles, so I did.

It has since happened three or four other times. However, I so asserted the right of a rent-stabilized tenant in this type of building, that all the other board members of this condo informed this guy that he was wrong.

Brian Lehrer: Marsha, I'm going to leave it there for time, but that's a really important story that you told and a very different wrinkle to this whole topic. Jenée, I don't think based on the letter's content that it applies in this case to what was described as a luxury condo, so it's probably all owners or maybe renters in the condo, but not rent-stabilized. It certainly is good to say out loud that enforcing these kinds of rules strictly can be a method that landlords use to harass rent-stabilized tenants and then maybe bring eviction cases against them.

Jenée Desmond-Harris: Absolutely, and it doesn't sound from what we've read that's what's happening here, but I do think it adds some important texture to how this issue might apply in other people's cases. I do think it again speaks to the issue of how deeply unpleasant it could be if you find yourself at odds with your neighbors and becoming really adversarial, and everyone fighting for their rights in a way that puts them into conflict with the people who live next door to them.

Brian Lehrer: I guess one last thought for me on this before we go on to the next letter, that could solve the problem, could get the stuff out of the hallway and avoid conflict, could be to ask the building's management to take the next step and go beyond sending the building-wide emails that it sounds like they've already sent, a general reminder to everybody in the building, "Don't keep stuff in the hallway. It's against the rules," and contact the offending residents individually, including the one with the stroller two feet from your door as you described it. People who might find it easy to ignore what feels like a faceless form letter might be prodded to act more effectively if they're contacted directly by somebody who feels to them like an authority figure, like someone representing management.

Jenée Desmond-Harris: I think that makes sense, and I would add, especially if management really drills down on the point the first caller made about the serious fire hazard. On first read of the letter, I didn't understand how a doormat would cause a problem, but the way the caller explained it made it clearer to me, and maybe it needs to be explained for these residents as well.

Brian Lehrer: My very smart and compassionate producer just threw one in that maybe the super could help people find solutions for where to keep their stuff if they're really having trouble with that. Some buildings have storage facilities. You probably can't do that with your stroller for your in and out with the baby every day, but for other things, there are sometimes storage rooms. Luxury condos in particular, which this is about, might have storage facilities in the basement that owners and tenants have some rights to. Are we done with this one? Should we go on to the next one?

Jenée Desmond-Harris: Let's go ahead and do it.

Brian Lehrer: We're going to take a break, and then we will continue with another dilemma as we continue on WNYC, the Brian Lehrer Show partnering today and three Thursdays in August with Slate's Dear Prudence advice columnist Jenée Desmond-Harris. A very different question coming up next.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC, partnering today and three Thursdays in August with Slate's Dear Prudence advice columnist, Jenée Desmond-Harris, who writes the Dear Prudence advice column on Slate and hosts the audio version, the Dear Prudence Podcast. She's coming on three times this month here with me, and I'll be on once later in the month on Jenée's show. We'll keep you posted about that.

All right, on to advice letter number two that one of our listeners wrote in when we invited submissions for this series last week. This is a very different kind of dilemma than the first one. Here goes with a recorded version of the letter.

Speaker 4: Dear Prudence and Brian, Michael, a friend of mine for over 35 years, is now 67 years old. A shift is taking place. Michael does not have personal conversations with me anymore. Instead, he speaks to me as if giving a lecture, loud forceful diatribes about politics, money, relationships. He is the expert on all things now. This tendency is relatively new, and I have witnessed this shift gradually over the last few years, especially about politics, and we are both very progressive liberals.

I want to be supportive, but I find myself getting sucked into his rants, and these turn into arguments between us, usually over obscure and meaningless facts. Background; each of us are now experiencing age-based health issues, along with some family stuff like aging parents. I've witnessed that he goes on automatic overdrive, ramping up any simple talk into an argument, and now I'm avoiding speaking with him about anything.

How do I shift these conversations into meaningful, personal, and heartfelt talks about each of our lives instead of these fact arguments? We've had so many great, supportive conversations over these many years, and I miss them. How do I kindly head off his rants at the pass?

Brian Lehrer: All right, listeners, and I want to tell you that though we are keeping the names out of this to secure everybody's privacy, that was the actual letter writer who recorded his own letter there, and did a great job. Not a radio professional, but you could tell he really cares and was very genuine. Jenée and I will see if we can help that listener. Again, listeners, we invite you to, as well. Do you have advice for this listener about his relationship with his friend? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

Jenée, I guess, since you went first last time, I'll kick it off this time. Okay? First, I just want to acknowledge the beauty and importance of male friendships. The stereotypes, and sometimes the reality, is that it's mostly women who have friends and who work on the relationships with friends, while men's social lives are more likely to revolve around games or other activities, or around their wives or other love partners' friends, but friendships of their own, not so much.

Just some props to the writer for caring in the first place enough to write this up and being emotionally open enough to write about your sense of loss and missing your mutually supportive conversations.

Jenée Desmond-Harris: I completely agree. I was so moved by hearing how much the letter writer cared about preserving this long-lasting and really special friendship.

Brian Lehrer: I don't know if the writer is expressing that to his friend and speaking on that feelings level, maybe gently, lovingly saying out loud, "I miss you," like he used the word "miss" to us. "I miss what we had," would be helpful. Maybe talk about your feelings and your love for him. Maybe the word "love," which can sometimes really elevate the vibe when the love is genuine, as it appears to be in this case. Maybe you've done that already, and you're way ahead of me, but that's something that comes to mind, and I didn't see it in the letter.

Jenée Desmond-Harris: I wonder if the letter writer worries that a direct confrontation, even one involving the word "love" and the phrase "I miss you," would be hard to say with someone who's been so difficult and argumentative lately. I think the question overall really exemplifies how difficult it is to just clearly say the thing you're feeling.

Absolutely, in this case, the letter writer could say, "Hey, buddy, you know, lately our conversations have been really intense. I find we're having arguments about small things that don't matter. I miss our old talks. It's all really taking a toll on me. Can we keep things a little lighter? Can we talk about issues that are more meaningful? Also, are you doing okay, really?" That's a reasonable script to use.

It's also just a tough one. We, as humans, just have a hard time having those emotionally vulnerable conversations that might make someone uncomfortable.

The letter writer asked, "How can I head this off at the pass?" I think, rather than having a confrontation where he addresses his friend about how bad the conversations have been overall, maybe it's more of a one-off thing where the friend is ranting and raving, and the letter writer says, "You know, I completely agree with you about the debate about outdoor dining in the city, or the Trump indictment," or whatever. "You know we're always on the same page, but I feel like I'm going to get depressed talking about this. How is pickleball going for you?"

Maybe pickleball is actually somewhat controversial these days. "How's yoga going? How's your sleep apnea machine? How are those muffins you baked? How are your grandchildren?" I think he could take the lead on pushing for the conversation topics that he actually wants rather than just being in reaction to his friend.

Brian Lehrer: Or maybe even asking questions on the personal level, like being an emotional detective in a supportive way. What are you feeling as you express that opinion? Why do you think you feel that way? Do you feel more strongly about this than you used to? Do you find yourself feeling more angry in general these days? Do you think you've changed? Are you happier or sadder than you were a few years ago? Are you satisfied with your own emotional state? It's like, if this person is not in therapy, being an amateur therapist, but in the role of a friend, but opening up the conversation to the feelings level, and maybe the friend will go to the next level, hopefully, than just ranting about whatever the content is.

Jenée Desmond-Harris: Emotional detective. I love that. I think that's such a good idea. I think it's completely worth poking around to see if there's something deeper that's bothering the friends. Also just flagging, could this personality shift possibly be a sign of an age-related issue that needs medical attention? I don't know. I'm not a medical expert. Maybe listeners have insight on that.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, maybe. Of course, it's so common these days for if there is a mental health issue or emotional health component that's making him more likely than before to lock in on anger or obsess on small things he has opinions about, right Jenée? All over the world right now after the deaths of COVID, people who've been in isolation are having trouble finding their footing again relating in a give-and-take with other people. Maybe some things like that are contributing, plus age-related illness, maybe, to what he's been like recently.

Jenée Desmond-Harris: Right. Let me affirm again that there's legitimately a lot to be angry and upset about in the world. Those feelings have a place and they are appropriate. I wonder if there could be a way to help the friend or even join him in channeling that anger into something like volunteering or activism, something to get at the issues that are making him so frustrated in more of a productive way than just ranting about them.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. That's really interesting. I was going to say that too. Maybe acknowledging to him that there's a lot to be angry about in the world that's more on the tips of people's tongues these days. Pick your issue in the era of Donald Trump and extreme climate events. It's interesting that they're on the same side politically. More typically, you'd probably get a letter like this, how do I save my relationship with my friend who I disagree so vehemently about politics these days, right?

Jenée Desmond-Harris: Right. I thought that made this letter so unique is that they actually agree, but they're still having arguments.

Brian Lehrer: The author Kurt Vonnegut once wrote "A sane person to an insane society must appear insane." It also made me think about Sinead O'Connor who just died. I don't have the exact quote, but I think she said something like that too around her mental health struggles about if you are sane in an insane world, then maybe you're just not paying attention, or it was something like that.

Jenée Desmond-Harris: Looking back, people could easily say, yes, why was she so angry and critical? Now we're all seeing clearly that she had it right. Her feelings were appropriate.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Before we get to some calls and listeners, what are you thinking about this case? What would you advise our letter writer on this? We will take some phone calls in a minute at 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. How would you advise this listener?

One other thing I'll throw in first though is I noticed in the letter that it says, "I find myself getting sucked into his rants. These turn into arguments between us, usually over obscure and meaningless facts." One piece of advice that came to mind for me is that sometimes we can't change other people, we can only change ourselves. I don't think that's an absolute, and I don't think it's absolute in this case that you can't help your friend heal from whatever is going on.

One thing might be to work on you not getting sucked into the friend's rants as much. Try not to get hooked by obscure and meaningless facts, as you call them. Don't sweat the small stuff in that regard. It takes two people to have an argument. It might be harder for him to ramp up into those diatribes as much if he's got nobody arguing back.

Jenée Desmond-Harris: Exactly. He might just need to be listened to. It reminds me of how people say that a small child will act out and try to get negative attention if they aren't getting enough positive attention. Maybe just simply hearing him and listening to him and mirroring back what he's saying could scratch the same itch for the friend without having to get into an argument.

Brian Lehrer: All right. We're going to come to the community section of this particular letter. I think the first one was really instructive, the condo situation. Jenée, I think you and I both got our consciousness raised a little bit by that caller who is the wife of a fire safety official. We'll see what correctives we get from our listener community and other interesting additions right after this.

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC as we are partnering today in three Thursdays in August with Slate's Dear Prudence's advice columnist, Jenée Desmond-Harris, who writes that advice column on Slate and hosts the audio version, the Dear Prudence Podcast.

We're responding to a letter that we aired a few minutes ago for those of you who are just joining us about a friend or bye from somebody whose 67-year-old friend suddenly seems to have had a personality change and doesn't have real personal conversations anymore, just rants and lectures about things. How can he help? How can he bring it back to the close and multi-layered relationship that they used to have, according to him? Will in Newark, you're on WNYC. Hi, Will. Thanks for calling in.

Will: Hi. Thanks, Brian. Yes, I just have a quick advice on that caller. I really think that the letter that he read, if he read that to his friend as I was hearing it, I would love to have heard that and understand where he's coming from. I think the letter that he has is perfect to express what he has to say and take it from there. That's my input, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, maybe. Jenée, what do you think? Did we lose Jenée?

Jenée Desmond-Harris: Just say that.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, there you go. Sorry. We lost your mic for a sec. Go ahead.

Jenée Desmond-Harris: Oh, sorry about that. I was saying, I often say to letter writers you've said it beautifully here, just say that to the person this is about. I do think it was really well put. Again, I know those conversations can be really difficult if we're not in the habit of having them.

Brian Lehrer: Michael in Huntington, you're on WNYC. Hi, Michael.

Michael: Hello, Brian. How are you doing? Yes, I guess what you talked about earlier and the previous caller pretty much online, what I would say, the guy could even just hand him the letter or mail it to him the letter. When I get into situations-- last couple of years, of course, I think we know we've all been more divisive. I have a lot of friends that just want to really get into arguments like the letter writer. What I say is like, these friends I've known for 30, 40 years, listen, Joe, whatever. I love you like a brother. Let's not talk about this. Nothing good is going to come of this conversation. You're not going to change my mind. I'm not going to change your mind. Let's just not talk about it. That's how I deal with that stuff.

Brian Lehrer: Michael, thank you very much. Dennis on Staten Island, you're on WNYC. Hi, Dennis.

Dennis: Yes, good morning. Hi. First-time caller. You have a great show, good topics. This is a very important topic. I think you both have made some important points. There's a lot of stress going on in the world right now. A lot of people are reacting to that and really struggling to cope. This is an older person who is talking to his friend. He's obviously very stressed out. I think one of the things that the friend who's seeking advice may need to do just a little bit more listening.

Brian, you made the point that he is engaging in and reacting to the rant that his friend is presenting to him. We all know that that escalates the tension. He may need to just step back a little bit and try to do a little bit more listening and say, by the way, I'm going to try to do a little bit more listening because there's a lot of things that you're upset about and I really enjoy our previous conversations when we used to have more pleasant-- Right now, if you need to talk to me about these things, I'm going to try to listen a little bit more if that's [inaudible 00:39:51] stress.

Brian Lehrer: Dennis, thank you very much. Laura in Nassau County, you're on WNYC. Hi Laura.

Laura: Hi. I just, from dealing for decades with very confrontational family members, I've learned a lot from therapy. The first thing they tell you is when you want to engage about an issue, is not to start asking them questions about them like, you guys had started talking about, "Well, why do you feel this way? Are you more upset," because people will get really defensive really quickly and go, "Why is it all about me?" They say you always use "I." " I feel sad that our relationship," "I feel our conversations haven't been going as well," so that they're not feeling you're targeting them because if they're already confrontational and amped up, you saying "You are doing this," or, "why do you feel that" it's just going to escalate.

Brian Lehrer: Laura, thank you. Yes, I guess, Jenée, there's a fine line between asking somebody what feels like an emotionally supportive "why do you feel this way" question, "how are you feeling" question, and something that makes it feel like you're accusing them of something.

Jenée Desmond-Harris: Right. I like that Laura mentioned using I statements. You can say, "I care about you" or "I'm curious to hear more about how you're feeling about this and where it came from." I loved the other callers' idea to say, "I love you like a brother." I just think that's incredibly disarming and that would be a great way into this conversation, however it goes.

Brian Lehrer: I guess it can be a tricky thing to suggest it can sound like an insult or a judgment, an alienate or trigger him much more, but I don't know if there's a way to suggest considering professional therapy.

Jenée Desmond-Harris: That's always really, really touchy. I might suggest it, but I would not do it in the context of saying, "You've become really unpleasant to talk to." I think there would have to be a separate conversation divorced from these debates where maybe the letter writer talks about their own experience with therapy or how therapy is becoming so much less stigmatized and just ask the letter writer if they've ever asked the friend if they've ever considered it.

Brian Lehrer: Or maybe an intervention, to that point, with other people who the friend cares about.

Jenée Desmond-Harris: I feel like that might be a little too intense. I did have another idea though, which is something quirky that I tend to do with my friends, and even my husband. Set out an agenda for your conversations. When you and your friend are meeting for coffee, make a list of a few things you just really want to hear his opinion on, or want to cover that are fun, or that are interesting, or that aren't going to lead to debates.

With two of my good friends recently, we had a Zoom. We each had an in-law dealing with health issues. We each had a topic that we wanted advice on, and we each had an update on our kids. We outlined that before we logged on and went around a conference panel and took turns going through it.

My husband and I will make a list of things to talk about during our walks at night. It actually helps you to cover everything you want to, and also not get stuck on any one unpleasant topic for too long.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, which was really his big complaint. All right, well, that's edition number one of Dear Prudence Visits The Brian Lehrer Show. Hope it was helpful, at least a little. We'll do another one next Thursday. Jenée Desmond-Harris is Dear Prudence on Slate. Do you want to plug anything you have coming up in the column or the podcast before you go for today like 15 seconds?

Jenée Desmond-Harris: The Dear Prudence column publishes on the site every Thursday. Every Wednesday, I'm looking for input from readers. If you enjoyed thinking about how you would respond to these letters, please go to slate.com and take part in that. The podcast comes out every Friday.

Brian Lehrer: Talk to you next week.

Jenée Desmond-Harris: Talk to you later, bye.

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Stay tuned for All Of It.

 

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