General

So, i recently had an experience that made me ask a few questions about uncoliced advices, in general.

What do we actually mean when we categorize some piece of advice as "uncolicited"?

"Advice that was given without being asked for" is the common explanation (or definition?). At the same time, a lot of people view it as something that is *always very undesirable*. I have even come across some post which said that uncoliced advice *is* a boundary violation.

I wanna hear peoples' thoughts on this, and i also wanna share some positives, negatives about it, as well as things that are relevant but not about it.


So what do i think are the positives of uncoliced advice?

It can break one's bubble of ignorance. Basically if you are completely unaware of something (which also means you will never be able to ask about that thing) receiving information about that thing from someone else is one of the very few things that can introduce you to the thing, which is good because that expands one's horizon of knowledge. Thats basically its only positive, but it does have variations (one can simply not keep something in mind when they do some activity, because they have not connected the two, if they are relevant, in their mind) and it has consequences which can be good.

What are the negatives?

It is prone to errors due to an insufficient grounding in reality. The way you give the advice might not be optimally helpfull, or it can be not helpfull at all if you dont understand sufficiently whats up with the other person (to which you want to offer the advice)

And there are also things we, wrongly - in my opinion, associate with unsolicited advice.

Being passive agressive; Yes, you can be passive agressive through giving uncolicited advice, thats about you, not about the act of giving uncolicited advice, in the same way that if you do something bad in some way, what matters when someone judges your action is that you did something *bad*, not the way in which you did it.

Offense; Offense can be justified (if what the offender says *is valid*) or unjustified. You can offend through uncoliced advice but that is about the validity of what you say. Not the act of giving uncoliced advice. With implicit offenses its similar, those are about the validity of what is implied (and there are specific techniques to figure out implicit assumptions that somebody makes)

Being offended; Im putting this as a separate thing because i could not include the element of fragile egos in the previous point. So, how you recieve an offense depends on how competent you are. If a very rational person recieves an offense, they will judge if it is valid or not. If yes, they will know they can improve themself, if not they will know the offender has made a mistake. In either case, they will act acordingly and reasonably. On the other hand, if a person with a fragile ego recieves an offense, they will feel threatened and, usually, lash out. So, thats about the person who recieves the uncoliced advice, not about uncoliced advice.

What do you think?

I'd say giving advice implies you're calling someone out on being wrong, which is always going to be an insult on some level. You're going to have different relationships with people who have different personalities and different moods that will make them more or less receptive to looking past the insulting aspect of it and being receptive to the advice. Whether or not it's solicited is a matter of asking someone's consent and giving them a chance to accept and prepare for the fact you're about to insult them.

Although people generally want to improve and are happy to be helped with that, they have to be willing to face that first part to get there. In the long run there's a net gain, but there's an initial emotional cost associated. You can't control whether or not they're able to face that first insulting part, but there's a degree of negligence if you give the advice without considering if they're in a place to be better off for it.

.

Unsolicited advice is simply advice you did not ask for. Sometimes it's appreciate. Most of the time it's not.

And that's the gamble of it all. No matter how good your advice is, some people do not want to hear it. You can have the best intentions in the world, but sometimes, it will not be appreciated.

This does not mean the person rejecting your advice is wrong to do so. Maybe they already know what they are doing. Maybe they are going for something different that you are suggesting. Maybe they just don't care like that.

Whatever the reason, it's bet to respect their no. If you keep pushing, then no matter how good your advice is or how well meaning your intentions are, you are now the asshole.

Seems like on Reddit you will always get unsolicited advice 100%. It's a literal minefield.

I mean, people love giving their opinions. And, as I understand it, Reddit is engineered in a way that incentivizes unsolicited opinions. Something about karma?

I know that. I was just venting when posting that comment.

Unsolicited**

Not. Uncolicted.

It has a red wavy "You spelled it wrong line" Under it.

First step. Use the right words.

That's what happens when the Sesame Street gang gets laid off from lack of funding. We are doomed...

i think i understand what you're trying to say in your 'pros' paragraph. sometimes it's important to tell someone straight up if they're in the wrong in a specific situation, and help them brainstorm solutions. it's how we grow, and how we help the people around us grow. if we surround ourselves with people who won't encourage us to be the best version of ourself, even if we don't necessarily want to hear it, we'll remain stagnant.

HOWEVER- the vast majority of the time, this is NOT the category that 'unsolicited advice' falls in.

unsolicited advice is usually not appreciated because assuming you know a person or their situation better than them is, quite frankly, incredibly condescending. in my opinion, if someone isn't asking you for advice, and is getting upset when you give it, there's probably a reason. maybe they already know how to handle it, maybe they've tried the advice already, or maybe they just need a friend to listen to them for a bit.

sometimes, the best thing we can learn to do in life is learn we don't need to be 'right' all the time. if someone says the advice that's given is unsolicited, or is upset by it, just apologize and move on. if it's someone we care about, we should have enough respect for them to trust that they know whether or not they 'need' advice or not.