Dear Harriette

DEAR HARRIETTE: At Christmas dinner, my dad called me out about my outfit in front of everyone. He told me that what I was wearing was completely inappropriate and that I should change immediately. I’m a grown woman, but I was absolutely humiliated by the way my dad spoke to me in front of friends…

DEAR HARRIETTE: My daughter’s teacher gives me way too much unsolicited advice. My daughter has good grades, she doesn’t misbehave regularly and she has never really been an issue for her teachers. Almost every time I come to pick my daughter up from school, her teacher feels the need to give me some sort of…

DEAR HARRIETTE: I decided to limit the amount of contact that my family is allowed to have with me. Now that I am older, I realize how truly toxic they are. I want to be cordial with them, and I want them to know how much I love them, but cutting off their access to…

DEAR HARRIETTE: My best friend is extremely upset that I’ve opted out of going to Miami for her birthday. We were set to go at the end of the month, but because of the new COVID variant, I decided to cancel my flight. We’ve had these plans for months, but I don’t want to get…

DEAR HARRIETTE: I don’t want to support my friend’s YouTube channel publicly because I don’t like their content. I have a lot of followers, and I only co-sign things that I absolutely love. Should I be completely honest with them about this? I don’t want to hurt my friend’s feelings, but I think their feelings…

DEAR HARRIETTE: Every time I hang out with my friend, he leaves random things in my car. A month ago, it was his glasses, and today he told me left his hat in my car. I never saw it because it was in my back seat, which is odd because he was never in my…

DEAR HARRIETTE: I don’t want to live with my boyfriend yet. We’ve been together for a year, and he’s been asking me over and over again when we can start looking at places together. I’ve never had the chance to live on my own, and I’m very excited about being able to do it in…

DEAR HARRIETTE: I am so mad right now. I have been super-careful every day since the coronavirus pandemic started. For more than a year, I didn’t go outside except to go to the grocery store and the doctor. Only in the past few months have I relaxed at all. I still wear a mask even…

DEAR HARRIETTE: The other day, I brought my friend to a dinner party as my plus-one. By the end of the night, she was telling the host (who had cooked the food) how she could improve on a few of her recipes. I’ve watched my friend be overly critical before. She’s done this to my…

DEAR HARRIETTE: The new girl at my job is making me look bad. I trained her myself, but none of the training is seeming to stick. She’s in a probationary period right now, and I’m due to give my analysis of her in a week. I really like her, but she’s performing so poorly that…