Yahoo!7 Answers Australia

One of the great things about the Answers community is that you never know who could be answering your question. It could be a kindly elderly woman in the suburbs of Perth, a hip teenager on the streets of New York or a middle aged Singaporean businessman. At any time of the day or night you gain a variety of opinions from different people with entirely unique backgrounds and views on life.

Many users on Answers don’t come for recipe tips or to discuss the economy. They’re looking for advice on something a lot more complex – matters of the heart. We’ve all been there; we’ve wondered about whether our crush returns our affections and how we should respond in different romantic situations. It doesn’t matter how old or experienced you are, love is a complicated emotion and sometimes you just need some independent advice to help you see straight.

That’s where this week’s featured user, ♥♥LOVE GURU♥♥ comes in. He’s a 29-year-old writer/journalist with a top contributor rating in the Singles and Dating sub category. In under a year, he’s managed to get 760 best answers from a total of 1353 answers, giving him a 56% best answer rate.

While ♥♥LOVE GURU♥♥’s background is in computer programming, he has attained a bachelor degree in Electronic Media Communications and minors in Sociology, Geology and Women’s Studies. This is perhaps where his interest in giving advice came from. ♥♥LOVE GURU♥♥ writes a weekly advice column and is working on a book about relationships, health, sex and dating. He finds Answers to be a great place to try out his advice before he uses it elsewhere.

So what inspires his answers to the lovelorn?

I draw from my own experiences, my education, and common sense. That last one is pretty important. Sometimes the best thing you can do, is just use a little common sense. Often, rather than just provide advice, I’ll rephrase the person’s question in a new way, and they’re able to help themselves. Often, we know what we should do, but the situation is just really confusing. It just takes someone to either agree with you, or help you look at it in new way.

♥♥LOVE GURU♥♥ finds he often is giving advice to young people who are just beginning to date as they often have many questions and want straight answers. He says:

Of course, I’m careful to not be obscene, but I do draw from both my sociology, behavioural, women’s studies and reproductive biology background to try to answer their questions. I’m careful not to talk down to them, but I try to use language that they’ll understand. It doesn’t do any good to talk down to people, because they tune you out.

♥♥LOVE GURU♥♥ has also found that some questioners are curious to know more about human behaviour. They don’t just want to know how to improve their relationship situation, but also why different people react in different ways.

A common question I get is, how do you ask someone out? It really bugs me to see all these short responses people leave, like, “You just ask them.”  Well, that doesn’t really help them.  So, I like to go into a little more detail.  Again, I keep things conversational, but I provide scripts, examples and biological explanations for why someone may have difficulty speaking to someone.  Oh, I know, it sounds way too complex to provide biological explanations, but the emails and IMs I’ve gotten tell me different.  People like hearing why they are, the way they are. They like hearing they are not alone.  They like hearing there is a biological, psychological, sociological and even anthropological reason for why they’re behaving the way they are. When we start to understand our behaviour, we can actually do something about it. When we receive scripts to follow, hear examples of how others have overcome this problem and get real detail, then and only then can we do something about it.

Next time you’re having a relationship crisis, you’ll know where to turn!

Caitlin
Community Manager

PS Know someone who’s “wow-ed” you on Answers? Think somebody deserves to be celebrated as the next Featured User on the Answers Blog? We want to hear from you! Leave a comment below with a link to the user’s profile or best answer, or email the Answers team at: y_answrs_team_au@yahoo.com.au