Why You Should Not Ask Your Friends For Dating Advice
A part of any friendship is to be willing to give advice at any time on any day.
This dress or that dress?
WAIT but what shoe?
Ok should we do sushi or Italian?
Do you like this throw pillow or that one?
I need help dealing with my boss. What do I do?
… well, what do you think?
What should I text him back?
Stop. Stop right there.
All of our hands have the stain of guilt when it comes to asking friends for dating / relationship advice and what I’m about to say may shock you but ….
Don’t.
Ok Chelsea, WTF are you talking back? You think I’m not going to group text my best friends asking them to draft a text to send back to the guy I’m dating? ARE YOU INSANE?
Yes, actually that is what I’m suggesting and no, I’m not completely insane … only slightly ;)
Here’s why.
Every single one of us walks a different path in life. We come from different backgrounds, households, careers, bank accounts, experiences, relationships, etc. and when we dive into our well of knowledge to spit out advice we are reverting back to those factors, those personal factors.
For example: I have been so burned in the past by ex-boyfriends and I know for a FACT that I, subconsciously, give advice based off of my personal experience because well, that’s the only experience I have to go off of. Ok so let’s take this a step further … Is that fair for my friend? Is that fair for me to put her situation under my personal experience microscope? Is that fair to your friend’s counterpart for me to automatically expect the worst out of them purely because of the ultimate f*$@ boys I have dated? It’s pivotal to remember that when receiving advice, the person is not you and you are not them. If you soak up their advice to the core of your existence you could potentially be doing something that isn’t’ quite, you & that wouldn’t be right to do – in a relationship sense. The person you are dating should be dating YOU and not a group text of 15 of your closest friends. Do you see where I’m going with this now?
I’m not suggesting you become silent with your friends as I will never stop turning to my friends for their two cents because they are my human diaries and I value their opinions however, at the end of the day the decisions you make need to come from YOU – by you and for you.
The trick is to be able to listen to their advice but you must be able to HEAR your own. What does your gut say? What are past life lessons learned telling you to do? If you could call yourself, what would you say? It may be so much easier to follow suit and not think for yourself but in turn you will be living in a relationship not based off of your wants and needs and that sounds miserable. You are strong, beautiful and fully capable of making decisions that best reflect yourself.
