Unsolicited personal advice

[jack]

Premises:

1. This person has a problem.
2. I find this problem easy to fix in my own life.
3. Everyone is exactly the same as me.
4. Therefore this person WOULD find it easy to fix if they knew about it.
5. Therefore they DON'T know about it.
6. Therefore all I have to do is tell them, and they'll instantly reform, be happy, and shower me with gratitude.
7. Oh no, it didn't work out like that :( What's wrong?

Spot the mistake? Step 3. If someone is genuinely unaware that they have a problem (typically something urgent and immediate) then telling them may genuinely fix everything. If they're refusing to admit they have a problem, then telling them may eventually get through (although not necessarily).

But often, it's not that someone doesn't KNOW they have a problem, it's that even if they do they don't find it easy to fix it even if you would. Either for an objective physical reason (eg. find it hard to get fit because a medical condition makes it much harder to exercise) or an internal reason (eg. they're panicked and don't know where to start and don't dare face it). Even if it's not obvious by looking at them.

In which case saying "it's easy to fix you should start by doing [several easy things]" may help (if you know their situation well enough to know what the things are), but saying "it's really urgent" is likely to only make them feel more dejected about the problem.

This is the problem with, for instance, going up to people in the street and saying they should exercise more, even discounting that they may have some good reason for not doing so, or some good reason for not needing to, even if they WOULD like to, even if you're right, it's unlikely to be what they need to hear.

ETA: This was originally going to be a cartoon with a little whistling dude who didn't know he had a problem and a little "la la la" dude who didn't admit it and a little flailing dude who didn't know how to fix it. But it seemed too complicated for a cartoon :)

Comments

[ptc24]

Alternatively, more cynically:

1. This person has a problem.
2. I find this problem easy to fix in my own life.
3. This person is stupid/I am a genius.
4. Fixing this person's problem for them would establish my superiority for all to see, and possibly cause this person to be in my debt.
5. Stupid ungrateful wretch doesn't know what's good for them. Grrr. They're just rejecting my excellent advice to be stubborn/difficult/whatever.

[seryn]

I guess. But you know what? Sometimes there's something easy one can do that the person doesn't actually know about, or a warning they should know. Like the zinc-based nasal sprays to combat hayfever can cause permanent loss of the sense of smell. So when someone says they're going to try that, I mention that there is an FDA investigation ongoing and suggest they make an informed choice.

I got some unsolicited advice when I was complaining about my networking problems (LAN type, not find-a-friend type) and it turned out they'd actually come out with 8-port ethernet hubs so I didn't need to daisy-chain 3 4-port hubs anymore. (You can tell it's been a while.) So the off-hand advice, "You should get a bigger hub." was exactly what I needed and since I'd had the kludged arrangement for a while I hadn't been looking so I didn't know about the new things.

And sometimes there is the common sense advice... like "If you're serious about exercising, I personally found the adage about finding something you love was the key. It turns out that once I found something that didn't involve running that I too enjoy some kinds of exercise. You should try to find something that suits your preferences." It usually leads to the person asking me what on Earth I found that didn't require running but still counts as exercise because most of my friends are like me, "If I want to go fast, I'll drive."

And the generic advice that won't hurt anyone but might have a placebo effect.... "You can't lose fat without drinking more water." Might or might not be true, but adding a couple glasses of water isn't likely to hurt someone and will help support exercise habits they're trying to build.

There's some practical advice that I share with people who move here... and I've run into a lot of them lately... start stocking up on staple foods now, at the very beginning of the holiday foods' sales. Because stores run out of things. We live downtown and the grocery stores don't have huge stockrooms, so there isn't a buffer when they start to run out of bread or flour or eggs or milk or canned pumpkin. People are shocked when I tell them this out of the blue. But more than one person has thanked me for the warning in the past. "I didn't believe you, but I saw people searching the freezer section for frozen corn when I stopped back for last minute items."

I do get unsolicited advice that I find useless. Like, how I'm going to feel better by being a vegetarian... which is fine if they just say that, but the people who couch their "advice" in terms which make it sound mandatory are really obnoxious. I also get unsolicited advice that I'll do better if I become a Christian. Or if I don't own a car/drive. Or if I just give up white flour/soda/sugar I'll instantly drop to the ideal weight.

I have more trouble with solicited advice not being useful. Like "Would you recommend your dentist?" either the person doesn't go to the dentist, or they haven't needed anything serious done so they can only review the cleaning. But they're quite insistent that I do what they do, and because I asked, somehow I'm obligated to call right there while we're talking.

Also I got a lot of flak from complete strangers when I joined a gym. Seriously. Like it bothered them when I posted on DW about my extremely modest success. Or people I see regularly around my neighborhood will ask me what I'm doing because I look better (and I do) and when I tell them I joined the gym in our neighborhood, they look aghast and say, "but you can just walk outside, that's all I do." Like my joining was somehow a slam on their choices. I say, "I like to lift weights, and I found it a lot easier to pay someone else to handle all the maintenance on the machines. It sure is nice out, you enjoy your walk now."

I don't think most people would be happy being me. I'm not happy being me some days. But I'm happier being me with a larger hub, a good dentist, and enough stockpiled food that we won't go hungry when all the restaurants are closed. I'm also happier being a stronger me who wins the battle against the tickle monster and who can lift a whole stack of plates over my head into the cupboard.

[jack]

I should have reworked the original post more. In one version I deliberately called out in contrast that if you had some (typically obvious) reason why the person wouldn't know that already, then there was clearly a good reason to tell them (even if you wouldn't ALWAYS do so) whereas if the vast likelihood was that they knew already, then it's probably NOT a good idea (especially if the implications of not knowing are particularly offensive in the culture).

[seryn]

There've been a lot of people in my sphere of influence talking about how unsolicited advice is never good. I think it's hard to have regular conversations with people without mentioning how you've handled situations they are experiencing. But I've been told offering advice is universally condescending.

I've also been socially backward for a lot of my life. I'm much better now than I was, but some of it is that the bar has been lowered. So I often think I would have improved faster without the social barrier to useful advice.

[jack]

I'm sorry, I didn't want to add to a torrent of criticism. I assume those comments are a reaction to the fact of people commonly over-advising. I think that if you're already in a conversation with someone, or if you have some reason to suppose you do know the subject better than the other person, or if it's not intensely personal, or if you genuinely launch in with a polite query of "have you tried", then most people would say that it's probably helpful -- especially if it's SEVERAL of those.

But many people DO launch with unsolicited advice which IS intensely personal and IS to a complete stranger and is NOT part of a conversation and DON'T ask, just tell, and DON'T have any reason to suppose they know better. I'm not saying NEVER give advice, but perhaps, put in a second and a half of thought to "is this incredibly offensive". I'm sure YOU do, but many people don't, and many -- even well meaning people, including me -- do sometimes, or avoid it only with an effort.

[seryn]

No worries. I didn't take it as a criticism of me offering unsolicited advice. You wouldn't know. I can be incredibly irritating in person because I don't get a chance to edit after hearing how it sounded.

[jack]

I don't get a chance to edit after hearing how it sounded.

:)

(I'm one of the people who will believe if you say "how that sounded is not exactly how I meant it" that's exactly what you meant.)

[leora]

I think advice about something that is unusual locally to someone who is new in the area is a helpful, nice thing to do, because you have good reason to believe they don't know and you have more experience than they do. I think it's more when you set yourself up as being more of an expert on life than someone else that it's obnoxious.

If you're actually speaking from within an area of expertise, it's different. When a random person makes a medical suggestion to me, that's generally annoying (especially to me, since my medical situation is extremely complicated and most normal things are potentially dangerous for me, so odds are good if I followed their advice I could suffer quite a bit of harm), but if my father who is a retired doctor makes a suggestion, then I listen and consider it, because I do have reason to believe he knows more than I do, at least in general, and if I have specific concerns about my condition, then I can bring those up for how they might apply.

That's why things like "become vegetarian" or "turn Christian" are annoying. They are general advice that don't relate specifically to you and are assuming the person knows more about how to live a life. Sure, some people are happier and better off when they do one or the other of those, and some people are happier and better off when they stop doing one or the other of those. I'm vegetarian and very much want to be, but I know someone whose health seems to have improved when he stopped being vegetarian. It can go either way.

As to your last example, I am truly sorry. I really think they are feeling bad about themselves and taking it out on you. They interpreted something as a positive change, asked you how you did it, and then became uncomfortable. I think they really wanted an easy answer or an impossible one, anything that didn't make them feel like they could do it with effort they didn't want to put in. This sounds a lot like the flip side of people getting upset with disabled people and trying to blame them for being disabled, because it makes them uncomfortable that the world is scary and anyone might become sick or injured through no fault of their own, even young people who did nothing obviously "wrong". (And yes, this does happen annoyingly often.)

I do worry a little about the drink more water thing though. I know I'm a minority, but I know others like me - we have trouble getting enough salt into our diets. If you up the water intake without upping salt and the salt is already low that can be a problem. Other than that, it should be okay. Massive overconsumption of water can be dangerous, but most people don't take it to those levels. If you're seeing to your salt intake, then you can up water safely though or if you already get too much salt in your diet.

[lnr]

Not to mention that you can't actually tell from looking at someone how much exercise they do or how much they eat. If someone came up to me on the street when I was 17 stone and cycling 9 miles a day they'd be likely to get a very well deserved right mouthful. I'm sure there are plenty of people now who must look at me even now and think I'm greedy and lazy, but that doesn't mean they're right. So you've no way at all of telling if they've *tried* your solution already and found it didn't work for them (4)

Plus not everyone *wants* to fix something that other people see as a problem. (1)

Unsolicited advice on weight/fitness is almost *never* welcome, which is one reason I try not to talk too much about the fact I'm dieting.