Ms. Mentor knows all

Chronicle Careers: 2/6/2006: Isn't It Romantic?

I heart Ms. Mentor, the Miss Manners for the academic set. She is particularly pertinent for women academics, but men should read her as well. Unfortunately, even though I'm not currently ensconced in academe, some of the same problems apply to living in a small town. A university, after all, is nothing so much as a very well-educated small town. Everybody knows everybody else's business, and romance (the topic of this month's column) is rife with difficulty, starting with the limited pool of the eligible and ending with knowing you will have to see your exes at the grocery store until you die, or move away.