Browse the Postbag
Friendship fractures, romantic catastrophes, family feuds and the occasional wandering toe. Pick a predicament and settle in.
A rare night out ends badly when one friend vanishes into the beer garden with a stranger, leaving the other waiting, worrying and quietly furious.
She thought she had found tenderness, escape and the beginning of another life. Then one disastrous night in a hotel room gave her a serious case of the ick.
Four neighbours, drinks beneath the stars and one supposedly civilised spa arrangement. Everything is lovely — until an adventurous toe begins crossing boundaries below the waterline.
A tipsy towel dash in a share house leads to accidental nudity, unwanted attention, and one very necessary boundary.
She’s 26, newly engaged, and just finished her nursing degree — but now her old friendship group has stopped inviting her out. Joely answers a letter about growing up, changing friendships, and how to say, “I’m still here.”
A sceptical reader writes to test Joely’s advice-giving credentials, only to accidentally reveal rather more than they intended.
A reader raised in an abusive household keeps finding herself drawn into painful relationships with older men. Joely offers a compassionate response about trauma, familiarity, safety, and why returning to harm is not the same as love.
A sleep-deprived office worker spots what looks like a workplace affair during a soul-destroying birthday cake ritual. She knows the wife from yoga, dislikes both culprits, and wants to know: is this her business, or should she namast-stay out of it?
A reader longs to visit Barbados, but her boyfriend refuses for reasons involving jealousy, insecurity, and a deeply unattractive racial stereotype. Joely unpacks the difference between vulnerability and control — and whether some holidays are worth taking alone.
A reader wakes at 4:17am after telling a heartbroken friend what she really thinks. Joely weighs in on drunken honesty, clean apologies and the limits of loyalty.
She kissed her best friend’s boyfriend at an eighteenth birthday party. Now she’s ashamed, confused, and desperate to repair the friendship. Joely gives her the honest answer.
A married woman is rattled when the glamorous neighbour across the road invites her husband to a very particular kind of gathering. Joely advises on evasive husbands, honesty, and why the real problem may not be the woman with the auburn hair.
He’s loud, inconsiderate, musically committed, and unfortunately very attractive. When a sleepless Melbourne woman finds herself annoyed and intrigued in equal measure, Joely offers advice on noisy neighbours, common sense, and resisting the romance of bad behaviour.
A sceptical man writes to Joely wondering whether his drinking is becoming a problem, while doing his best not to sound like the sort of man who writes to advice columns. Joely is not fooled.
A husband wonders whether a newly quiet bedroom is a passing phase, a private struggle, or a sign there may be someone else. Joely answers on silence, suspicion, and the limits of flowers as strategy.
A reader in her late fifties finds herself blindsided by an all-too-lively crush and wonders whether desire has a dignified place later in life. Joely answers on longing, age, and not making a cathedral out of crumbs.
A reader finds herself trapped in a school WhatsApp group full of chatter, politics, and “helpful” women with too much data and too little restraint. Joely answers on digital overexposure, low-grade social captivity, and the beauty of mute.
He says he cares, but his disappearing act is beginning to say rather more. Joely weighs mixed signals, half-presence, and the cost of waiting too long for clarity.
A 32-year-old man has a job, a flat, a girlfriend and far too many socks. Is his novelty hosiery harmless joy, or a crisis unfolding from the ankles down?