Why We Suddenly Become Experts When Giving Advice to Friends

There is something very funny about the way friendship works. You can be completely lost when it comes to your own problems, but the moment your friend calls with theirs, suddenly everything becomes obvious. You know what they should say, what they should do, when they should walk away and, most importantly, what they absolutely should not text back. You have no idea what you are doing with your own life, but apparently you are now running a consultancy for everyone else's.

Everything Is Easier When It Is Someone Else's Problem

Your own situation comes with a thousand complications. You know what happened before. You know what you said three weeks ago. You know what you are worried about and what you secretly hope will happen. That makes making a decision surprisingly difficult.

Your friend's situation is much easier to look at from the outside. They tell you the story, you listen for five minutes and suddenly say, ‘Okay, first of all, don't message them.’ It feels obvious because you are not emotionally standing in the middle of it.

We Become Extremely Confident Very Quickly

There is usually a moment when the advice starts sounding suspiciously professional. ‘Honestly, you need to set a boundary.’ ‘You are overthinking this.’ ‘Just tell them how you feel.; ‘Stop giving them so much importance.’

These are sentences that sound incredibly wise when you say them to someone else. The funny part is that you may have spent the previous evening doing precisely the opposite in your own life. Your friend does not need to know that.

Friends See Things We Cannot See

There is actually something useful about getting advice from someone who is not inside the situation. A friend can notice patterns you have become too used to. They can hear how you talk about someone and pick up on things you keep brushing aside. They may remember what you told them months ago and connect it to what you are saying now.

Sometimes you need somebody outside the situation to say, ‘Wait, you've been complaining about this for six months.’ And suddenly, the thing you could not see becomes very obvious.

Everyone Has a Favourite Solution

The advice also tends to reflect the person giving it. The brutally honest friend wants you to confront the situation immediately. The peaceful friend says you should let it go.

The dramatic friend has already decided you should block everyone involved. The practical friend asks about money, timing and what happens next. The romantic friend thinks one honest conversation can fix everything. You can tell a lot about your friends by the advice they give you.

Then We Ignore the Same Advice

This might be the best part. You give your friend a beautifully structured speech about not settling for people who make them unhappy. You explain, with complete confidence, why they need to stop checking someone's social media.

Then, three days later, you are doing exactly that. Or you tell someone not to overthink a message while personally rewriting a two-line text six times before sending it. We are often much better at identifying unhealthy habits when they belong to someone else.

Sometimes We Just Need to Be Heard

Not every friend who tells you a problem actually wants a solution. Sometimes they want to complain. Sometimes they want someone to say, ‘That sounds awful.’ Sometimes they already know what they are going to do and simply need to say it out loud first.

The best friends eventually learn the difference. Because there is a big difference between giving advice and being there for someone. And sometimes the most useful thing you can say is not, ‘Here's what you should do.’ It is simply, ‘I get why you're upset. Tell me everything.’