Stop Giving Unsolicited Advice

Kate Sloan

Unsolicited advice is an epidemic, and it has to stop.

I literally can’t go a day on the internet without some random stranger popping out of nowhere to give me advice I neither asked for nor need. They’ll do it about anything. They’ll offer “wisdom” on sex and relationships (despite me having been a writer and educator in this field for nearly a quarter of my life), my mental and physical health (despite me knowing way more about my own situation than they do, certainly), business and money (despite me managing just fine). It’s infuriating.

Without a doubt, this scourge stems at least partly from systemic sexism. There is an implicit assumption, the world over, that women – and, frankly, anyone who isn’t a straight white able-bodied cis dude – don’t know what they’re doing and need guidance. This is insulting on many levels and also sometimes, I know, evades our critical judgment because we’re so used to media messages telling us which kinds of people are clueless and need help and which kinds of people are “qualified” to offer that help.

So I’m here to remind you, incase you forgot this or never learned it: your unsolicited advice is, in the vast majority of situations, unhelpful, unneeded, and best kept to yourself. Here are a few reasons why.

The person you’re advising may not want or need advice.

Many people talk about their problems just to blow off steam, or to express themselves in a bid for kinship and connection. They may well already have a solution in mind. They may well have encountered this very problem before, and already navigated it successfully. They may very well, for that matter, not even view it as a problem.

If someone hasn’t explicitly asked for advice, giving it is unnecessary and may even be met with (justified) anger and frustration. Try asking first, “Are you looking for advice on this?” or “Would you be open to hearing what I did when I was in that same situation?” or “Are you wanting empathy or strategy?”

You don’t know the full context and thus aren’t qualified to give advice.

Unless you are someone’s literal doctor, therapist, etc., it is hiiiighly unlikely you have even half of the context you’d need in order to understand their problem and which solution(s) would be likeliest to help.

This is particularly true for health problems (mental or physical). You have no idea whether the advice you’re offering is compatible with the other person’s current treatment plan, preexisting conditions, health history, traumas, triggers, etc. You probably don’t even know whether they’ve already tried the thing you’re suggesting (and trust me, it’s likely that they have, or have ruled it out for quite valid reasons).

This is why people usually only ask for advice from close, trusted friends/mentors or actual goddamn professionals: very few people in anyone’s life will have the necessary context and expertise to be able to advise properly on that person’s problems. You’re statistically unlikely to be one of those people, especially if you’re just a stranger from the internet. So zip it.

Giving unsolicited advice is presumptuous and rude.

It’s a behavior that operates on the assumptions that a) you know this person’s problems and life better than they do, b) you’re smarter or more knowledgeable than them, on this topic or in general, and c) they care about what you have to say.

The person you’re advising, whether or not you realize it, has been living with the problem they’re experiencing, maybe for a long time. They know how that problem manifests in their life, and what has and has not worked for it in the past. You do not have that information, even if you’ve been through that problem in your own way in your own life. They did not ask you. You do not need to weigh in. The world will not be any poorer for you having decided to shut your mouth.