An Agony Aunt Resigns

Novelist Susie Boyt resigns as an agony aunt.

Since childhood I have fancied myself as something of an agony aunt . An old head on young shoulders, other children would come to me to sort out playground disputes or for consolation when there had been 'infidelity' amongst best friends (secret tea dates behind the official best friend's back, favouritism shown towards a rival etc etc). Friends would approach me when there was a whiff of divorce in the air at home, or a grumpy teenage sibling who was making life Hell. I remember once at primary school advising a class mate to be 'extra extra nice to your Mum, lots of cuddles and presents, that sort of thing' because her father was having an affair with a woman at work. I was eight years old.

On Monday nights I was glued to the LBC late night problem phone-in. With the radio under the blankets I marveled at tales of betrayal and psycho-sexual malfunction. But I also liked the Helps at Hand programme on Sunday afternoons that was all stain removal and sprockets. I listened and learned.

By the time I reached secondary school without ever quite realising it I was operating a fully comprehensive advice service open round the clock to all comers. Boyfriend troubles, quadratic equations - I was proud of my range.

Part of my allure as an agony aunt has always been that I dispense all manner of solutions. My one stop problem shop fielded inquiries that were medical, literary, consumer, emotional or preferably combined all four. All night chemist? Try Zafash in Earl's Court. Saturday in Paris on a shoe string? Simply take the Eurostar Nightclubbers Express a snip at £35 return. Can't remember the exact dimensions in that poem of Wordsworth's where he measures the muddy pool by the baby's grave - well 'Tis three feet long, and two feet wide'. Should you mind if your boyfriend goes for an 'innocent 'drink with a girl from the train and neglects to mention it? If you mind, you mind. Do you need to bake the pastry case blind for a lemon meringue tart? I'll say you do.

As I entered my late teens it seemed to me that good pals existed in order to eliminate the trouble and distress in each other's lives. If I wasn't prepared to leap out of bed and speed across London on a night bus for someone.... well, how could I call myself a friend? I set upon this notion as fervently as if it had been my career. The stakes were high but then so were the rewards. The feeling of well-being I got when talking through another's trouble in a way that was truly consoling - there was nothing like it. The sense that I was absolutely essential to another's happiness made my awkward teenage life seem so worth while. And what's more I got such good results!

When I was in my twenties and my nights were frequently punctuated by 4 am calls for help, my friends' distresses were virtually indistinguishable from my own. Like the novelist who takes six hours to read the paper because he identifies with all the characters in it, I did not know where I stopped and my friends began. I have heard it said that as a parent you can only be as happy as your most unhappy child and this was true of me and my ever increasing circle. In the frenzy of emotions and hyper-sensitivity that surrounded me I nursed the fantasy that my helpfulness was the stuff of legend.

It is a cliche that people who feel shaky surround themselves with those who are even more delicate and I investigated this phenomenon in my latest novel The Last Hope of Girls, in the character of my heroine's mother.

Martha's mother was at home with harsh things...Rough dealings, sharp practice, savage persons, threats, police stations and fluorescent lit prison visiting centres...She actually found them soothing. It was the smoothness of things that terrified her, living the numb life of a dead person.

While I do not think that problem solving was something that I did to make myself feel strong at the expense of my friends, I do believe that it filled a vacuum in my life, that it was a solution in itself, as it were. I liked the status of being the one with the answers, but more than this, it very much suited my at-the-time frail emotional state, not to be the one with the questions.

And then, almost overnight, I crossed some boundary and the demands that were coming at me spun out of control. I felt the anger and frustration in slight acquaintances' voices as I struggled to come up with solutions while they urged me to hurry and speak up. I would come off the phone shaking with anxiety, and sleep became a thing of the past. One day I just stopped answering the telephone, afraid of the fresh demands each call would bring. More and more I realised that all I really wanted to say was, 'Could you bear the idea of getting a little professional help?' One person I hardly knew told me at this time, 'I don't see the point of going into therapy, I'd much rather chat to you for an hour three times a week.' YIKES

Then, while I was pregnant with my daughter, I started having nightmares. I would be on the phone to an imaginary woman and she would be sobbing and then the baby was screaming and I just did not know where my loyalties lay. In the dream this balancing of babe and telephone receiver hardened into genuine terror. And then suddenly, it all became obvious. I would have to choose the baby. Everytime.

During my pregnancy, before I started having these dreams, I did an intensive training course for a bereavement counselling charity and one of the first things I learned in our role play was how to sit out a difficult silence without stuffing it with soothing words. At first this was hugely difficult. But when I realised that by listening very very attentively it was possible that I could give as much or possibly more than I could by making helpful suggestions, it was a revelation to me. To be fully present to a person in distress is often the greatest thing you can offer. This does not mean taking that distress away or providing solutions. It merely means establishing a safe environment in which the distressed person is free to examine what he or she is feeling.

Once in my very last session working as a bereavement counsellor, two months before my daughter was born, I had an overwhelming desire to say to the person I was counselling 'Of course dead people live forever in the hearts of those who love them.' (This is one of the least good sentiments expressed in Martin Amis's excellent book Experience.) As the session progressed the phrase would not leave my brain. I knew that these words would comfort my client and also send me soaring in her estimation. But it was not my job to make her like me nor to offer her neat little consolations. I could not take away the pain of her loss. It was not part of the agreement, but for a moment I wanted it to be. I resisted and the desire quickly faded. It was a huge life lesson for me.

I've given up giving advice now, and the amazing thing is not one of my friends seems to have realised. It may be that now all of us are older and wiser the demand has naturally withered with the supply. I still have the odd lapse, don't get me wrong. Sometimes I have to bite my tongue when I hear, 'YOU DID WHAT!' or 'WHAT YOU NEED TO DO IS THIS...' springing to my lips.

Of course, I will happily direct you to your nearest Kosher Chinese Restaurant if you ask me or recommend a good invisible mender when you feel the need. And if you are in distress I'll listen for as long as I can. But I won't make suggestions. If there's a girl in tears standing on a street corner, I'll go and ask her if she is all right but I won't linger and I won't insist she comes home with me for a bun.