In Praise of Unsolicited Advice

Plus! A walk invitation!! The robot massage is funded!!!

Hello everyone,

Welcome to Issue #154 of CAFÉ ANNE!

I got so much nice feedback on last week’s story about my Prospect Park walk with Moammar, the stranger I met after he posted on Reddit looking for a walking buddy. “I don’t know if meeting random strangers off the Internet is always the safest way to make new friends,” wrote reader Laura R., “but it’s so lovely to hear that in this particular case it turned out so brilliantly!”

I was even happier when Moammar told me his whole family (which recently immigrated from Bangladesh) loved the story and that his little sister Munira, who runs a bakery on Instagram, will be sending me chocolate treats for Ramadan!

Moammar and his little sister Munira

Meanwhile, Moammar and I are planning another (short!) walk this coming Wednesday, March 5 at 12:30 pm—this time on the Brooklyn Heights Promenade. Moammar is still looking to make new friends, and we’d be delighted if you could join us. Email me at annekadet@yahoo.com and I’ll let you know the deets!

Also last week, I wrote that I was dying to try one of the new AI robot massage places operating in the city, and requested donations to subsidize my adventure. Boy, did you come through! So grateful for the Venmo contributions from Lulu K., Heather J., David H., Carl B. and Jonathan S. who added the memo, “Robomassage, not ZYN. I love drugs but not nicotine.”

And that’s not all. Reader Elliot Z. sent me a promo coupon reducing the price of a $75, 30-minute massage to just $39. And when I booked a session using the coupon, I discovered he’d gifted the remaining amount! Thanks Elliot!

That means I have enough $$$ in my adventure fund to treat Shelly, my neighbor (and friend!) who lives down the hall. She’s not only a comedian and pet sitter extraordinaire, she’s a professional masseuse. It’ll be interesting to get her take. We’ve got appointments booked for tomorrow afternoon. I’m so excited to write it about for in the next issue!

In other news, huge shoutouts to this week’s new paid subscribers Debbie F., Scriswell and Brian W. Not to mention the sweet Venmo donation from Therry N. who added, “Blow it on lattes or bialys, it's yours!” All together, that’s enough $$$ for 35 coffee-and-bialy breakfasts!

I am, of course, very excited for this week’s issue. I have a great chat with Dyske Suematsu, my NYC friend who won’t stop giving unsolicited advice. Please enjoy.

Regards!

Anne

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DEPT. OF EXPLORATORY CHATS

In Praise of Unsolicited Advice

The English philosopher Bernard Williams once said, “Unsolicited advice is the junk mail of life.” I’m with Bernie! I never give advice unless someone explicitly asks for my input.

So of course I was intrigued when my friend Dyske Suematsu, a designer and entrepreneur who lives on the Lower East Side, sent out an essay last week defending his penchant for dishing copious quantities of unsolicited counsel.

He had an interesting take on the issue. And while I don’t totally agree with his thinking, I thought it’d be fun to discuss it for the newsletter. I suggested the idea in an email. “Of course yes!” he replied, and invited me over for coffee.

I edited the following conversation for brevity—and to help us both sound better than we actually did. Please enjoy!

Dyske Suematsu: Unsolicited Advice Giver!

ANNE: You started your essay by saying that you are known for giving unsolicited advice. Is that really true?

DYSKE: I think if you ask my friends, they’ll say that yeah, that's very true.

And you went on to concede that for thousands of years, most societies have advised against giving unsolicited advice.

I did a bit of a research. It’s a very universal thing, not just in the west.

What I found charming about your essay is that most people do give unsolicited advice, but don't want to admit that they do. Or if they admit it, they say, “I shouldn’t be doing this.” I think you're the first person who's actually been like, “I do give unsolicited advice, and this is why it's okay sometimes.”

It’s not just sometimes. I do it all the time.

Can you restate your take on why it’s okay?

It’s more about the framing of it.

I don’t know where it originated, but the reining idea is that the issue is whether the advice is solicited. I don't think that’s really the key issue. In my observation, the people who can take advice don't care whether it’s solicited or unsolicited.

When I was doing a startup, startup founders have a real problem getting honest feedback from their customers and friends and families, because everybody wants to encourage you: “Yeah, you’re gonna succeed, this is a great idea!” Nobody wants to share what they're really thinking because there's nothing in it for them. So startup founders, for example, would just love to hear any kind of advice, solicited or not.

On the other hand, there are also people who can't take any advice. They often actually ask for advice, but they never actually listen.

One example you gave is a friend who goes on and on about their awful relationship and you’re like, “You can do better! Break up with them!” And they’re like, “Yeah! I'm gonna go do it!” And two years later, they’re still together.

Yes! So it doesn’t matter whether it's a solicited or unsolicited, some people are not going listen to you anyway. So if you don't want to waste time, what you should do first is ask, “Can this person take advice?” If you determine that, yes, this is a person who can take advice, then invest your time and energy. But if you sense that this person is not going to listen, don't bother. Even if the person asks.

How do you determine if someone can’t take advice?

It’s actually relatively easy to sense—it’s usually if the person prioritizes feelings over reason. And getting that sense doesn’t take that long. You can sort of sense that, “Oh, okay, this person really cares about feelings.” Then I'm sort of like, “Okay, well, I better not say anything.”

So you’re saying basically that the person who prioritizes feelings rather than logic or values in making decisions—they’re not appropriate receptacles of your wisdom.

Some people cannot listen to unsolicited advice as just a piece of information. Their ego comes in. That’s why they hate the person who delivers that unsolicited advice.

There’s one thing I actually didn't cover in my essay, because maybe it would end up offending people. But for your newsletter, whatever! And it’s that the reason why there's a lot of people saying, “Don't offer any unsolicited advice,” is that it’s actually a defense mechanism.

Deep down, they know that they should listen to advice, right? And deep down, they know, “I’m not ready for it, I don't have what it takes to change myself or to take advice, so I don't want to hear it now.”

That would be the honest response. But they don't want to admit those things. So instead of blaming themselves, they actually blame the person who gives unsolicited advice, and make them out to be the villain.

Who are some people you give unsolicited advice to?

A lot of my friends, because I do surround myself with people who can take advice. They get pissed off, but they get over it.

That’s the interesting thing about unsolicited advice. Especially in the end, when it turns out to be true, then we have a much deeper bond. It’s like, “Dyske cared enough about me to tell me that.”

With the person who can't take advice, it takes a lot longer to really get to know that person, to establish any kind of deep bond with that person. It's very difficult, actually.

How about your wife?

It’s just constant. Sometimes my wife actually, literally, tries to close my mouth with her fingers!

I remember two times you gave me unsolicited advice. One is when I first started teaching at my meditation center. You came to one of my classes and afterward, out of the blue, you said, “Anne, you need to stop apologizing for being new at this.” And I thought, “He's right!” And I never apologized again, or mentioned that I was new. It was very helpful. Do you remember that?

I don’t remember. Because I just give advice so casually. It’s not even in my memory.

And then right before I launched my newsletter, we met for coffee. And you basically told me, “No one pays to read stuff online. This is a bad idea.” And I said, “Well, that might be true, but reality is very bendy.”

Yes, I had just written an essay about how there is so much written content on the internet, the supply-and-demand equation has actually flipped to the point where people will pay to be read. Which is true, generally speaking. In your case, clearly I was wrong.

I'm wondering why, in both those cases, your unsolicited advice didn't bother me. Whereas other people can offer me advice and I really do feel like, “F— you!”

This feeling of annoyance is a very interesting thing. When I feel annoyed by something, I always try to analyze it. It’s not a given that you should feel annoyed. It usually comes from somebody who is very similar to you.

The most annoying thing is the people who won’t stop giving advice, even if we ask them to stop. What is up with those people?

Giving advice is fun, right?

You're right. They enjoy it. They don't want to stop. It’s very pleasurable to give advice!

You feel like you’re in control.

I personally love giving advice. I’m not as bad as I used to be— I’m more accepting and appreciative of folks as they are. But it’s still very fun for me, when people ask. Maybe that's one reason I gave myself this very strict rule of never giving unsolicited advice.

So when you see someone who also loves giving advice, you see yourself in that person. And that’s when you’re going to get annoyed.

Yes! I'm working so hard to restrain myself. Why don’t they? Why do they get to have all the fun?

And some people don't enjoy giving advice at all. It’s not part of their enjoyment. Especially the people whose self esteem is really low. They just instantly assume that they couldn't offer anything of value.

Another reason I don’t give unsolicited advice is because it presumes the other person doesn’t already know better. I'll give you an example. I’ve had a number of people, including ex-boyfriends, tell me, “You know, if you put more effort into your appearance, you could really be stunning.” And I’m like, “Don't you think maybe I’ve made that calculation? Looking great takes a lot of work!”

You could have taken it as, “Oh, interesting. That's how he thinks about that.” The fact that you got annoyed might have some sort of psychoanalytic reason. Personally, that wouldn't upset me.

But isn’t it presumptuous to assume the person doesn’t already know?

You're never gonna find out unless you actually do it.

Another reason I don’t give unsolicited advice is based on Carl Rogers, a psychologist who was big in the 60s. He came up with the idea of unconditional positive regard. If you can accept a person completely—just as they are right now—that gives them the support they need to move forward and make the changes they already know they need to make.

I’ll give you an example. A long time ago, I was at the bar with my friend P when she took me aside and told me she thought I had a drinking problem. Which I did! But my reaction was just, “F— you, P!” And I kept drinking.

A couple years later, I had another friend, R, who would go out with me and watch me get trashed, night after night. She never said anything. She never criticized me. When I finally told her I needed help, she was there. She’d been waiting for that moment for a long time. But I could only make that admission because I felt she had so much regard for me. She never tried to change me.

I think unsolicited advice and criticism are the same thing. It’s saying, “There is something wrong with you that I think you need to fix.” It makes people defensive, and it backfires.

I wouldn't blame that first friend so harshly. That person at least tried, they risked it. The delivery was not right, but maybe they planted a seed. When you know something is true, it gets stuck in your head. To me, the fact that the person tried is more important than the delivery.

I also feel that the person giving unsolicited advice is often just trying to validate their own choices. Or there's an element of focusing on what’s wrong with others so they can avoid looking at their own shortcomings.

That’s part of the joy or fun—the benefit of giving advice. I think about that too. When I give advice and enjoy it too much, I'm thinking, “Okay, what am I repressing?” Or, “What am I covering up?” There’s some sort of change, or something that I'm resisting, that’s makes giving this particular advice so enjoyable.

So it seems you actually have two criteria for deciding whether to give advice, solicited or not. One is, can the person accept it? And second, are you doing it because serves you, or because you actually care about the person?

Presumably, you're giving advice because you care about that person, right? But that's not always true. Sometimes you enjoy it because it makes you feel better about yourself. That’s why self reflection is very much necessary.

And then there’s a German proverb, which I think is pretty well known: “Never give advice unless asked. The wise don't need it, the fool won't heed it.”

I’ve heard that before. But the wise don’t need it? Well, that's not true! Who is this perfect, wise guy? I’m sure even the Dali Lama could use some advice.

On the flip side, sometimes I question my blanket ban on giving unsolicited advice because my motivation for not giving it is selfish. Perhaps sometimes the person could really benefit from what I have to say. But I don't want to suffer the discomfort of that person getting upset with me.

Yeah, that’s the norm. Consider the man who blames women for his failure to find a girlfriend, claiming that women are shallow and only interested in macho men with money. Meanwhile, he overlooks his own glaring issues, like his poor hygiene, which everyone else notices but no one dares to mention because they don’t care enough about him to give unsolicited advice.

That’s what normal people do. And I’m not exactly normal in that sense, right? And lot of my friends are not normal in that sense. So I will just blurt out stuff. And sometimes a friend will get so pissed off, cursing and yelling. But a day or two later he’s like, “Hey, what’s up?”

I think a lot of normal people get envious. They think, “I wish I could do that with my friends.” I see a lot of my friends struggling with, “My good friend, she’s in this situation. I’d like to say something, but I don’t want to upset her.”

When I hear that I say, “Jesus, if I were you, I’d say it without a second thought.” But they’re really laboring over whether they should say it or not. And that just seems so painful. I feel bad for them, that they have to struggle so much to tell the truth to their friend.

In a way, you’ve created a circle of friends who are willing to hear your unsolicited advice.

The negative part of being like that is you do get canceled if you go a step too far. I try to manage that with new or newish people in my life. But I do sometimes overstep certain boundaries, and they do disappear from my life. I can think of several people who I really liked as a friend who just canceled me and haven’t spoken to me ever since. When I think about that, I do feel really sad. So it’s not all good, my world.

So here’s my last question: what if I advised you to stop giving unsolicited advice?

What? What?

If I said, “Dyske, you should stop giving unsolicited advice! You really need to stop!”

How would I respond? With all that I have already told you. If you could actually come up with good reasons why I shouldn’t, that I haven’t thought about, maybe I would stop. But so far, no!

Epilogue: I was delighted when later that day, I got an email from Dyske offering some fresh unsolicited advice. To give readers an incentive to pay for the newsletter, he advised, I should make raw recordings of my interviews available only to paid subscribers. “If they read the article, and liked the person, they'll likely want to listen to that person talk,” he wrote, perhaps referring to himself. He even sent a link to the specific microphone I should buy to make recordings. I’ll think about it!

Meanwhile, what’s your take on unsolicited advice? Please take this week’s survey and explain your choice in the comments!

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“I can’t believe anyone would waste time colonizing Mars when Jupiter is right there.”

—Michael Hollander

CAFÉ ANNE is a free weekly newsletter created by Brooklyn journalist Anne Kadet. Subscribe to get the latest issue every Monday.