What is the most unhelpful advice you have received?
What is the most unhelpful advice you have received?
I'll go first: "You have to have children when you're young," told to me when I was in my late 20s, with no desire to ever have kids, and no means to support them, by someone divorced multiple times with at least one adult child who does not speak to them.
Also: Responding to "How do I deal with this problem?" questions with "Oh, don't worry about it, it's enough that you're even thinking about it!"
I was a new dog owner, went to /r/Dogs to ask about a particular behavior my dog was exhibiting I'd never seen or read about before (turned out to be normal tho) and every reply I got basically told me I don't know how to care for an animal and that I should give him to someone else.
It was then I realized that it wasn't just /r/RelationshipAdvice that was full of bitter, jealous losers whose advice is always "dump them." It applied to literally every single subreddit dedicated to advice. They may have started with good intentions and knowledgeable people, but over time filled up with people who had no business giving anyone advice.
My dad threw a party to celebrate when I graduated university with a degree in Computer Science.
At the party, my dad's friend took me aside and said "My nephew just got a degree in electrical engineering. Now that's an up and coming field, you should get a degree in that."
Like, alright buddy. Hopefully that career pays well enough for another four years of student debt. I'm still kinda in shock at how dumb of a thing to say that was.
The usual acne related ones, like washing my face more or using tooth paste on my spots. Turns out clearasil won't fix your hormones.
Use olive oil instead of sun screen because it works better than SPF and isn't full of chemicals.
When taking a taxi on a short stop over in Dubai, the taxi driver told me not to have blue hair (which I had) or no man will ever want me, while my then boyfriend was also sitting in the taxi, masquerading as my husband (we were wearing rings and just letting people assume we were married, which everyone did. Including the taxi driver!)
Work related: don't make my code too "complicated" or my one coworker can't understand it (read: my coworker doesn't know what async means, and instead of him learning, I'm just not ever meant to do anything async... When processing huge amounts of data... Also, error handling is too hard, don't do that either) yes, I will forever be salty about this. He deleted weeks worth of work while I had covid because he didn't even try to understand it - his reasoning being "it doesn't work anyway, so there's no point in understanding or learning what I'm doing"
"sleep when the baby sleeps"
Yeah because there's absolutely nothing that needs to be done once I finally get my daughter down. No washing and sterilising, for prep for us or for her, general chores around the house which you can never do effectively one handed. And fuck me if I wanted to try and relax and have an actual evening after they're down too.
"Sleeping like a baby" had also never seemed like such a juxtaposition!
“Everything happens for a reason”
- technically correct, completely unhelpful.
“God doesn’t give you more than you can handle”
- Fuck. Off.
"You just have to work through the pain." I've injured myself multiple times in the past exercising by following this idiotic advice.
It's one thing to push through discomfort, that's how your body gets stronger. But If you're in actual pain, stop and listen to the alarm bells your body is giving you.
On dating and relationships: "Just be confident."
It's not wrong, but spectacularly unhelpful. I mean, a brain surgeon has to be confident to go cutting into somebody's head, but clearly that's not enough, right? Confidence as a romantically-attractive quality is a very particular (and peculiar) performance. Going to a party 110% certain of one's own value, sitting in a corner with a confident set of one's jaw, and silently waiting for the ladies to form a queue is...
...sufficient, apparently, because you just to be confident.
When I was a teen I worked as a waiter at a dirty smokehouse/bbq place.
One of the kitchen staff there would make sexual comments about me. Say things like "You're lucky you look good because you're so stupid." And would ask what kind of underwear I was wearing.
I told my parents about it, and the advice they gave me was "Deal with it. You need a job."
Within a month that kitchen staff member had started to grab me and sexually assaulted me.
I don't talk to my parents anymore.
I mean, recently? "Just use the official app, it's the same thing", lmao.
But overall, the worst of all time was someone telling me how to cope with a lack of friends by suggesting some stupid, isolating hobbies.
Back as a young fella, striking out in the dating market a bunch ...
"Just be yourself!"
No, honestly, that was the problem last time - I was looking for something a little more granular and actionable.
This is one of those helpful and encouraging things that people say without necessarily really thinking it through. Deep down in intent, they're right - you can't fake your way to healthy relationships, being insincere or putting on a performance of being someone you're not isn't going anywhere genuine down the road. Absolutely correct, absolutely great advice - but it's never given in sufficient complexity and depth to be useful.
None of those grown-ups were like "Ah yes, definitely be sincere about who you are - but also don't spend a whole date monologuing about the book you just read or your favourite video game."
That you can be genuine and sincere about who you are, while still using your social skills and putting your best foot forward socially just ... didn't occur. At the time, my understanding was that it was a hard binary - either I was 100% me at 100% volume and whatever came out of my mouth was definitely the best thing I could say, or I was stifling myself and being 'fake' in order to build an equally-fake relationship.
It took a friend's brother taking me aside to make it 'click' - he was holding a can or a bottle and was like "So the whole object is all 'real you' yeah? But any time you're talking to someone is like right now - you can only see the side that's facing you. It's all you, it's all honest, but you still want to show them the best side, the best angle, of the whole thing. Don't sprint straight to showing them all of your worst angle just because that's what's on your mind that day."
"Try again." Particularly involving schoolwork. Derelict teachers then complained when the result of trying again would be identical, to the letter, for the same reasons as the first time. But teach? They did not.
I was in a “troubled youth” cult for many years. “Unhelpful advise” is an understatement compared to the heaps of fear-driven doctrines and rituals we had to follow, lest be homeless. I could go on for days about this topic, but the biggest “unhelpful advice” was to cut all of my childhood friends from my life completely, on the basis of “my own good.” I am now a virtual stranger to them, and although I’ve somewhat made amends, nothing will ever make up for our lost years.
And not me directly, but some years ago when my friend and I were both desperately seeking work, and running up against the "you need experience to get a job to gain experience" conundrum. His mentor told him to stop being so precious, and get a boring corporate job with a pension, maybe one that would pay his law school tuition. It wasn't a thing yet, but wow, it would have been the perfect time to reply, "OK, Boomer."
My dad once told me that if my relationship with god was good, my grades would take care of themselves. I know what he meant was, “if you do the things god wants you to do, you’ll also be doing well in school”, but it’s still horrible advice.
More recently, my mother-in-law has been saying to my wife that she wishes that my wife could have faith in god’s plan because it just helps her in own life so much. I always roll my eyes at this. If there is a god, and he has a plan, his plan sucks ass and he plays favorites for sure.
"Do something that you love and you'll never work a day in your life."
Bullshit. I worked in the video game industry in a field I'm very passionate about with great people who were all talented. But the industry burned me out and almost killed my passion for games as a hobby with the endless unpaid overtime, constant crunch and deadlines, fairly low wage and all that investment was rewarded by eventually being let go along with all the less senior staff because our studio was bought out and the parent company told to cut expenses.
Don't work for the video game industry, people. Make indie games by all means. But stay clear of the big names.
Everything my father ever said to me. Tecate cans look like coke when your driving comes to mind as maybe the best.
2 days ago we had a moving up ceremony, and the speaker said that the secret to a successful life is "Honor your parents and Honor God". That advice wouldn't apply to everyone...
"Just be yourself and you'll make lots of friends at your new school."
Four years of constant bullying and loneliness later: I have one acquaintance that would eventually become my friend after a few more years. I also have basically no self-confidence, and my social development is set back half a decade as I'm still looking for friends to have sleepovers with when everyone else has moved on to normal teenager stuff.
Money doesn't buy happiness
Like fuck it doesn't. This is class war propaganda and shouldn't be confused with the idea arseholes are better at making money.
2004 told to use antipsychotic or be expelled from college https://controlc.com/17bd9edd