I hate being asked for advice. I typed that and then I typed: I am very bad at it. But actually I don’t think that is true. When anyone asks me for advice I just tell them what I would do in the situation they are in, the same as most people do. I doubt this is a better or worse suggestion than whatever anyone else would offer.
The real reason I hate giving advice is that almost nobody ever follows it. So much so that I have come to believe almost nobody is ever actually asking for advice. Even though, superficially, almost everyone seems to be asking for advice all the time.
There is a vast industry that circulates around this widespread craving for advice, this need for counsel relating to all manner of problems, big or small, real or imagined. Self help is everywhere you look.
There are endless books and apps and influencers whose entire purpose is to tell you how to eat and sleep and manage your time. How to have friendships. How to date. What is wrong with your gut. Whether you are doing enough social justice. How you can be happy. Whether you should start a business. How to dress. If you are being ghosted. If you are neurodivergent. How to do your make-up. How to remove your pores.
I stumbled upon an Instagram account recently that was just reel after reel of advice on how to be a girl in the city. It explained how to go for autumn walks and go to buy coffee in a cafe. (Yes, you’d be correct in thinking this advice consists of, literally, “go to a park and walk”.) Some of this advice (and yes, I mean this account) feels pointless. Much of it feels repetitive. Quite often the phrase “the blind leading the blind” comes to mind.
I mostly avoid TikTok and Instagram reels because the spectacle of people with plain personality defects doling out wise counsel on managing friendships, or of cynical grifter types hectoring their followers on social justice, is too much for me. But this stuff obviously would not exist if there was no audience for it.
Occasionally someone with genuinely useful advice comes along and you see how repetitive and insubstantial the rest of it is. Emily English (@emthenutritionist) is a nutritionist who blew up on Instagram for her simple, healthy (but not joyless “boil cabbage and drink the water” type) recipes. I love them. I would highly recommend them. I make them about once a week at least. I bought her cookbook and I would recommend that too. In short, I am a fan. But even I have to admit the groundbreaking innovation her recipes offer often consists of swapping mayonnaise for Greek yoghurt. This is actually a very useful tip. (Even in a tuna melt, if you can believe that). But I’m not sure it would feel so groundbreaking if much of the rest of the advice we are offered was not closer to the “go to a park and walk” variety.
I suppose too, one of the main differences here is that English is actually an expert in her domain and many of those offering advice are not. What should any of us really expect them to be able to give us?
I have realised this is sort of why I hate giving advice on personal problems too. I have found that what happens is you are asked for advice, you listen to a problem and then the next time you see this person you have to hear them talk about the same problem again, at length. Or perhaps a slightly different version of what is essentially the same problem. You discover your advice has been discarded. Then the next time you see them it is the problem again. And the next time? The problem once more. By this stage they will say, “Oh you’re probably sick of hearing about this”, but then they will go on with the problem regardless.
There are a few exceptions to this, of course. Practical people asking for essentially practical things. I have friends who are also authors who will text me pictures of the invariably vile book covers their publisher is trying to lumber them with saying: Is this horrible? And I will reply: Horrible. Pick a fight. And they will come back a while later saying they won and the book will look beautiful now.
I know people who have found themselves in complicated, bleak family situations or relationships who need to ask someone what a sane response to madness might look like. Happy to be of service in such cases. Or sometimes someone will just say: “Do you think it was rude the way she spoke to me?” Yes, usually. If you find yourself asking if someone’s comportment falls outside of social norms that is generally because it does.
But the ecosystem of nebulous small-scale problems that seem, to the outside observer, inconsequential but somehow cause endless strife is one I do my best to stay out of. There is no answer in these cases, there is no end. Only a long spell spent as an unwilling audience, listening to the kind of story that was never exactly exemplary of life’s rich tapestry be repeated until it is totally threadbare. Every angle dissected, the bones of it scraped dry.
Because I am a woman who is about 30 I hear the relationship version of this in particular a lot, from men and women alike. I particularly resent this one because being asked to give advice about matters of the heart is often basically a trap.
Recently a man I knew was complaining and complaining about a relationship that seemed obviously over. I avoided saying anything for a year, but I slipped once. I suggested taking a two-week no-contact break. His eyes glittered. Instantly I saw what I’d done, but it was too late. “You never liked her,” he began. Then somehow it was all my fault. Next time, I told myself, whatever you say, say nothing.
I complained to my therapist recently about feeling weighed down by all this. “I’m not a priest!” I basically shouted. I find the Irish Catholic psyche can sometimes slip out in this setting. She replied: “You’re not a therapist either.” She was right.
Rachel Connolly is a writer from Belfast. Her first novel Lazy City was published last year
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