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Giving advice

13:43 / 20.04.05

This has spun off from the latest thread about the Syph’s emotional pain. I’m not going to link to it, find it for yourselves, read it and weep, but this comment from Ganesh piqued my interest:

I'm not going to offer any more advice because you don't need (and very probably aren't interested in) advice; you need to get off your arse and act on it.

Now, I increasingly have come to think that there are huge limits to the giving of advice IRL let alone over a medium as ethereal as the internet. Most people asking for advice don't want to act on it, especially if it's challenging to their preconceptions, attachments etc. I worked for a while as a Rogerian, person-centred counsellor (only briefly, phone volunteer thang) and one of the main things we were taught is how seductive and basically egocentric advice-giving really is. What could be more pleasing than to being asked your opinion after all, and being so important and clever that you have a answer! Flying off the handle when your advice is then completely ignored is an understandable and quite common trait - and is something I’ve seen on Barbelith quite a lot. Not usually in such crude terms, but more as a slow slide from sympathy to derision as a person ties themselves more and more in embarrassing awful knots in public. (Keith whatever-your-name-is, I’m looking at you).

I’m of the opinion that most people asking for advice are, in the most sympathetic view, asking for a sounding board while they work out their problems and come to a position of congruence and acceptance re. any changes to be made. And this will normally take time, and lashings of heartbreak, embarrassment, public shame and humiliation etc. before they do so. A lot of the time, I feel that if that person, could act differently, they’d do so – in the meantime they want to chat about it, sound out the options, have their idiocy pointed out to them etc. Now, I’m not asking for Barbelith to be more sympathetic – a bit of well-phrased cruelty is part of the reason I come here after all, but I thought I’d air the issue. Basically, is it worth giving people advice, especially on the ‘net? And what should our reactions be when it’s rejected – or as is more usual acknowledged, accepted, then completely ignored?

Tryphena Absent

13:53 / 20.04.05

Basically, is it worth giving people advice, especially on the ‘net? And what should our reactions be when it’s rejected – or as is more usual acknowledged, accepted, then completely ignored?

I think it's always worth giving advice because occasionally someone will really benefit from it. When that happens I think it makes everyone happier and I don't think it's negative to be cheerful because you've made someone's life better. When it's rejected- there are a million miles between someone acknowledging and rejecting advice and outright ignoring it- when people acknowledge but reject it's generally because they feel incapable and that's no one's fault. Everyone refuses to act on advice sometimes. Circumstance often dictates your preferred approach and some things have to be learnt anyway, especially where your heart and genitalia are concerned. When advice is ignored it's more difficult because it means that the person asking is shutting themselves off and no one likes the experience of being asked a question and then overlooked.

ONLY NICE THINGS

14:18 / 20.04.05

If I were you, I wouldn't take the question so seriously.

14:21 / 20.04.05

Nina: I guess what I'm thinking about isn't the giving of advice as such, but more the expectations we attach to it, after we've given it.

14:23 / 20.04.05

I think there is an issue here about who is giving the advice and whether it's actually worth a damn. It's worth remembering that the act of giving advice can be an exercise in vanity.

Those concerns aside, many people, whilst not prepared to act on advice immediately - or perhaps ever - get something out of discussing the problem at hand: emotional support, a feeling of connectedness, a chance to step outside of themselves, etc...

I think your reading of advice threads is a little reductive, Liquid.

14:25 / 20.04.05

Yes, lots of the time when people ask for advice IMP they appear to be venting or purposefully trying to get attention.

But then again, its worth giving advice as once in a while someone will take it and benefit from it. Which is always nice.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

14:28 / 20.04.05

Personally, I've been given some great advice online (well, here specifically...) However, I've probably been given even better advice which I'll never appreciate because I didn't follow it.

A lot of it is definitely the "sounding board" thing, though...

14:36 / 20.04.05

I think there is an issue here about who is giving the advice and whether it's actually worth a damn.

Good advice can get overlooked because of where it comes from, indeed. For example, sometimes a child can come up with the most brilliant advice, yet it is dismissed simply because they are a child. It is often not heeded because the child could not possibly know more than an adult. But that is just one example. Sometimes in just how we view others, as being perhaps inferior to ourselves, we overlook good advice because of course, how could they have come up with such insight when I could not? A bit of a flipside to what Liquid was stating.

There is the idea that is bouncing around this thread already, that sometimes people need a sounding board while they figure stuff out. I know I do this. Sometimes I talk to my friends about my problems and immediately they want to fix them. It is not what I want, I just want my friend to listen to me, not sort my life out.

14:41 / 20.04.05

Sometimes I talk to my friends about my problems and immediately they want to fix them. It is not what I want, I just want my friend to listen to me, not sort my life out.

This is a central tenet of Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, isn't it. Women just want to vocalise things, and men want to fix them.
Thus, I deduce that you are a woman, Strix, and your sounding boards are men. Ta da!

Scrambled Password Bogus Email

14:52 / 20.04.05

Is that what "Men are from Bars, Women have no Penis" is about?

I've always found it the other way round, personally.

15:05 / 20.04.05

Thus, I deduce that you are a woman, Strix, and your sounding boards are men. Ta da!

Exactamundo, Smoothly! Most of my friends are male. When I do reflect on my problems with my women friends however, it is often stereotyped as a "bitchfest". This is infuriating to me.

Speaking of stereotypes though, there are men that just want to talk sometimes while they work out their own baggage. As well, as a woman, I often want to fix my friends' predicaments and I am frustrated that they are uncooperative with my suggestions.

15:11 / 20.04.05

He know's what he's talking about, that Dr. Gray.

I've always found it the other way round, personally.

Well, its almost certain then the men you think are men are actually women, and the women you think are women are actually men. Money. Simple as that. Men are mamas, Women have the penises.

Tryphena Absent

15:28 / 20.04.05

What I was trying to say, though I made it a bit too fangled, is that you shouldn't expect anything except that the person asking doesn't overlook the fact you answered. If you do more than that you're assuming quite a lot about your own ability to perceive accurately.

15:29 / 20.04.05

Now that is good advice, Nina!

Tryphena Absent

15:29 / 20.04.05

And the way we communicate here means that we can't always get the really important things across.

05:14 / 21.04.05

Is giving advice on the net and elsewhere futile?
No.

Why? Ok in the example of the net and possibly the Temple forum. If the person the advice is targetted for doesn't act on it or gives up fast when they don't get 'instant' results then I agree it's very very annoying and I fully understand why someone would get highly peeved. However, someone else in a similar situation maybe reading the forum/web page and think 'Wow that's good' and importantly act on it. The person the advice was for one day will regret not taking the help at the time but the person (who you may never know) who did use it will have at least gained something useful.

And I will admit to be one of the people who read said Temple forum and others and use the advice.

05:52 / 21.04.05

mebbe those who are offended when their advice is ignored give it in the wrong sense. advice should be the benefit of the giver's knowledge/experience/whatever - but the recipient is unlikely to be in an identical situation, so it may not necessarily be exactly relevant to them, in toto [how *do* you make italics??] let it go!

so give advice, but don't *expect* it to be taken verbatim. some of the best advice i have used has been, well not the answer i hoped for, but showed me the way to a solution. so even if your advice is seemingly ignored, it prob'ly isn't. not wholly, anyway.

and really, what's it matter to you they fail to see supreme reason, huh? if they can't see your solution, sod 'em... : )

should you give advice on the net? as my dad always says, it's nice to be nice.

09:30 / 21.04.05

Basically, is it worth giving people advice, especially on the ‘net? And what should our reactions be when it’s rejected – or as is more usual acknowledged, accepted, then completely ignored?

Good questions, although I think it's worth attempting to draw a formal distinction between advice and reassurance (I've often been slightly alarmed at how readily we Barbeloids dish out the latter, sometimes quite inappropriately).

On balance, I think it is worth giving advice since, as Nina points out, in a few cases it really can make a difference. Where people ask really specific questions about antidepressants, for example, I'm usually happy to help them make an informed decision. When the questions are more vague ("why do I feel so shit?") I feel the line between advice and reassurance becomes blurred, and there's less to be gained.

How should we react when our advice is rejected or ignored? I guess that depends on how many times a given individual has sought advice, and how much energy we've put into supplying it (for whatever mix of altruistic/ego-stroking reasons). As with face-to-face doctor-patient interactions, if someone repeatedly presents the same problem but makes little or no effort to engage with one's attempts to help them address it, one eventually concludes that they're primarily there for the interaction itself - and the interaction may be not merely unhelpful, but also a factor in their apparent 'stuckness' within an ostensibly negative situation. This is one of the dangers of too much one-sided 'helping', and a particular danger of unconditional reassurance.

14:01 / 21.04.05

If I were you, I wouldn't take the question so seriously.

Yes you would. Because you would have been them.

rising and revolving

15:24 / 21.04.05

Honestly, sometimes it's not the advice that's the most helpful bit of advice.

Often, something someone says will trigger a change in perception/perspective that enables me to see my problems in a new light, or see where I've been fucking up. It's rare that these comments are actually intended as advice - they're generally just part of the dialog.

So, put me down for sounding board, rather than focused advice. Does this stop me giving advice? Nope. It's a hard reflex to break - and as Ganesh says, there's a fine line between advice and reassurance, and there's a pretty compelling urge to be reassuring when someone states they have a problem - for good or bad.