Over at Slate, advice columnist Dear Prudence is answering Father’s Day questions, and the last one is a real doozy. The advice-seeker, On-the-Market Dad, is a 38-year-old man who received an email from an online dating service requesting he write a dating testimonial for his father. First of all, write a dating testimonial for your dad? Weird. In any case, OMD’s father is 70, and the son’s problem is that even if he did write the testimonial, it wouldn’t exactly be glowing. His parents are divorced, and, he says, “I believe he’s a good person at heart, but he’s got some psychological problems that have caused him to not always be there for me and to treat my family negatively.” Yet, he doesn’t want to say no, for fear of insulting his dad. Prudie advises he decline, despite his father’s potential negative reaction. Um, happy Father’s Day? Is asking your kid to write an online dating testimonial for you cool or creepy? Should the son have dutifully done his father’s bidding or tell his dad no way? What would you have told OMD to do? [Slate]
