Why I Am The Worst Person To Ask For Advice

*Opinions are mine, conclusions are yours. Take what resonates, leave what doesn't. Respectful disagreement always welcome  unkindness never is.

If you come to me for advice, the first thing I am going to do is ask you a question. Not about the situation, about you. Specifically, I am going to ask you what kind of support you are looking for right now, because I have been burned before and I have burned other people before and I have learned, through a series of conversational disasters, that those are two very different things and I am not qualified to guess which one you need.

Do you want the hard truth? I have it. It is ready. I have been holding it since approximately thirty seconds into your story and I will deliver it with love and zero hesitation. Do you want the hype? I also have that. I believe in you at a cellular level and I will construct an airtight case for why you are completely correct and also incredible and the other person was clearly out of their mind.

But I need you to tell me which room we are walking into, because I have made the mistake of bringing the hard truth to a hype girl moment and it did not go well for anyone involved.

The Time I Got It Very Wrong

There is a specific facial expression a person makes when they came to you for validation and you handed them a growth opportunity instead. It is a particular combination of betrayal and regret, like they are reconsidering every life choice that led them to this couch, to this conversation, to you specifically. I have seen that face, I have caused that face, I carry it with me as a cautionary tale.

The thing is, I was not wrong. That is almost always the problem. The advice was accurate, well-reasoned, and genuinely offered from a place of love. It was also the exact wrong thing for that exact moment, because what that person needed was not an accurate assessment of the situation. They needed someone to say yes, that is outrageous, you are completely right, and here is why you are going to be fine. I skipped directly to the part where I explained what they could have done differently.

I have since apologized for this. Multiple times, to multiple people. The lesson took a few rounds to fully land.

Here Is Why I Am Actually Very Good At This

The reason I ask first is not because I am indecisive. It is because I genuinely respect that both answers are real and both have their moment. The hype is not hollow. When I tell you that you handled something with more grace than most people could have managed, I mean it. When I tell you that your instinct was right and the other person was being unreasonable, I have assessed that independently and arrived there honestly. I am not just saying words. I am a hype girl with receipts.The hard truth is not cruelty dressed up as caring. It is what I would want someone to hand me when I am about to make a decision I will regret, or when I am telling myself a story that is protecting my ego at the expense of my actual growth. It is the advice I give to people I respect enough to be honest with. It is a form of love. A slightly uncomfortable one that occasionally requires a debrief conversation afterward, but love nonetheless.

The problem is only ever the timing and the only way to get the timing right is to ask.I would like to gently submit that the friends who always give you the same answer regardless of what you need are the ones you should be watching. The one who hyped you up into sending that text. The one who told you the hard truth the night before your wedding when you did not ask and also could not do anything about it. The ones operating on one setting, maximum support or maximum honesty, without any interest in calibrating to the actual moment.

I am not those friends. I am the friend who is going to pause the conversation, look at you very directly, and say: where are you at right now, because I can go either direction and I want to go the right one?

Sometimes people laugh when I ask. Sometimes they tear up a little because nobody has ever asked them that before. Sometimes they say they do not know, which is its own kind of answer, and we figure it out together. But I always ask. Every time. Without exception.

Because the most loving thing I can do is give you exactly what you need and not what I assumed you came here for. One of us has to ask the question. It is always going to be me.