Dear Carolyn: A close friend and I are entering health science careers via graduate school.

We are pretty competitive individuals, and she puts a lot of her competitive emphasis on the academic realm. She is going through medical school now, and I am going to school this spring for physical therapy.

My problem is that she consistently, unintentionally dismisses my profession as easier than hers or less difficult to get into. The fact is, many universities are seeing more applications for physical therapy than for their medical programs, for fewer available slots. Both of our programs culminate in doctoral degrees, by the way.

She often makes comments such as, "I know you'll be offended by this, but most medical students who are close to failing out choose to go instead for physical therapy." I'm hurt that she could think so little of me and this profession.--Hurt

Define "unintentionally."

The competitiveness of your degrees and professions (and any defensiveness thereof, ahem) is irrelevant. There's just this:

She: "I know you'll be offended by this, but "

You: "Then why say it?"

Or

She, paraphrased: "Dropouts from my program skulk into yours."

You: "You do know how pompous you sound when you say things like that, right?"

Consider it a public service to all the non-M.D.s this eventual M.D. will rely upon--heavily--over the course of her wow career.

Hi Carolyn: What are your views on whether a man, if he is truly interested, will make a move to ask out a woman? I feel like we are bombarded with ideas and celebrity figures telling us that if a man doesn't make the first move, he is "just not that into you." This doesn't seem to leave room for the inherent fact that every person is different and responds to situations uniquely.