Cary Tennis

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Cary Tennis is an author and columnist best known for his work as an advice columnist or agony aunt in his column Since You Asked, which appears on the website Salon.com. Since You Asked began in 2001, and was based on a previous column by Garrison Keillor entitled Mr. Blue which appeared in Salon's Books section.

His advice differs from many mainstream advice columnists such as "Dear Abby" in that Tennis focuses less on questions of social etiquette or providing concrete steps towards a problem's resolution. Instead, Tennis often is more concerned with broader issues concerning the reader's self awareness, with walking with them through possible consequences of certain actions, and with looking at the political, social and spiritual dimensions of the issue. A question related to the stress of a white-collar job may be answered in part by a discussion of the lack of unionization among management workers, for example; a question regarding a hidden past may occasion a discussion of the nature of forgiveness in various religious and secular traditions. Often, Tennis presents a series of different possible courses of action without recommending one over the other.

Tennis occasionally makes reference to his own life, both as a writer and a recovering alcoholic; he is notably a strong supporter of psychotherapy, if at times critical of particular examples.