5 Types of People Who Always Give Terrible Advice

5 Zealots and Advocates

They Say Things Like:

"I totally understand about having a child who just won't behave. The only way out of this is to pray. Why don't you come down to my church this Sunday, and we'll pray him back to normal?"

"Man, getting laid off right before the holiday? That's harsh. Remember that when you're at the voting booth. The sooner we get Ron Paul into office, the sooner we can get rid of corporate bullshit like that."

Why It's a Bad Source:

I have friends who are full-on 420 advocates, and I quite frankly don't have a problem with it. As long as they're not annoying with it or touch me with their filthy dreadlocks, that's their thing. But I don't come to them for advice on matters of stress because their answer is always, "Hit this. It'll relax you." Now, I'm not going to lie -- in the past, I did hit that. And it did relax me. And after that buzz wore off, I was just as stressed as when I first asked for advice.

Obviously theirs was a "here and now" solution, a temporary, Fix-A-Flat means of alleviating the symptoms that does nothing to repair the tire.

I'm not just picking on people who smoke pot -- every group has these zealots who base every conversation around their pet cause. They're always waiting in the wings for any opportunity to insert their agenda into the conversation. Like hardcore, door-to-door Christians who won't take "Fuck off" for an answer, people who are so annoying that they actually make other normal Christians angry. Flip down to the comments section real quick. See those people starting a religious debate on both the atheist and creationist sides? Or the stoner, defending the validity of his smoking, completely ignoring the core point of the article? Those are the people I'm talking about.

Those people not only offer unsolicited advice, but they go out of their way to aggressively force it onto you. Wait, let me guess -- the solution to my financial problem is to adopt your belief system and join a group of like-minded people? Hmmmm ... it's almost like you've got an agenda there.

Zealots and advocates are salesmen, and every conversation is a pitch. And that means that any advice coming from them is automatically predisposed to bias, based on that agenda. They're not doing it to be malicious. They're just so used to turning their entire life into a perpetual battle for their cause that it gets attached to everything else, like stepping in a pile of dog shit and later trying to figure out how it also got onto your jacket.

Whether they intend to or not, your personal problem is just one more battleground in their never-ending culture war. The ones who aren't close friends just see you as another strategic plot of land to occupy. Another soldier to train for their frontline.

But even worse is the opposite of that ...

4 Ass Kissers

They Say Things Like:

"It shouldn't matter that you wore your old Def Leppard concert T-shirt to the interview. Holes or not, those guys just don't know a good thing when they see it."

"She gave you a D on that report? Don't listen to that bitch, she just doesn't like you. That report was perfect. Just keep doing things your way because you know more about writing than she ever will."

Why It's a Bad Source:

My house used to be extremely popular because, even though I was in my mid-20s, most of my friends weren't quiet old enough to buy booze yet. I was their guy, but my rule was that they had to spend the night so I knew that they weren't out running over families or puking in some poor kid's wading pool. They treated me like a rock star. Every joke I made was funny. Every drunken philosophical observation was deep and groundbreaking, even when I was just talking out of my ass, which was most of the time.

Any time I asked for advice from one of them, they would tell me that I was doing fine as is. In fact, I can't remember a single one of those people saying something to upset me. That is, until I stopped buying them alcohol.

It turns out that my willingness to get them things, easily, that they couldn't get on their own was a powerful bonding agent. In those types of situations, people will go out of their way to make sure they never offend you, because once that bond is broken, they've lost their supplier. And it doesn't have to be just a dude buying booze for minors. The merchandise could be emotional, sexual, financial, an esteem boost, free pony rides ...

You find it all over the place. The pretty girl who surrounds herself with nerdy guys because they shower her with praise. The corporate executive surrounding himself with lower level yes men because they never do or say anything to get on his bad side. That's all fine and dandy, but when it comes to advice, none of those people are going to be straight up with you. Honest, to-the-point advice is usually something you don't want to hear because the solution to many problems involves you changing something about yourself, and that's hard for most people to accept. "The reason you have such a high turnover in employees is because you're kind of a dick to them. You should try not being a dick and see if your numbers improve. Dick."

Getting that advice from someone you don't fully respect often ends on bad terms. As long as you have something that these people want, they are not going to put themselves in that situation. "No, you don't have a cocaine problem. You just need a little pick-me-up in the afternoon. There's nothing wrong with that."

Back when my life was a total train wreck, this was the type of advice I'd get from everyone I knew, and they would have continued giving me that sort of feedback right up until my funeral after an overdose. That's why this kind of advice is so dangerous -- you want to hang out with those people because it feels good. Everyone loves praise, and if you had the choice of being around people who pat you on the back versus people who criticize you for your failures, that ain't no choice at all, brotha. But without those criticisms and honest feedback, you will never grow, because you've planted yourself in soil that's warm and firm but has no nutrients.

Their advice and your reception of it is self-serving on each of your parts. Make no mistake, your benefit is the furthest thing from their minds. And the same can be said for ...

3 Faceless Crowds

They Say Things Like:

"You mentioned in your poverty article that you had a clothes dryer. How can you say you're poor if you owned a dryer? What you should do instead is use a clothes rack." (That's actual advice I received, by the way.)

"Thanks for adding me to your Facebook! Looking over your posts, it looks like you're going through some ass-kicking depression. What's your name and address, and I'll send you a few of my Paxil. They really help!"

Why It's a Bad Source:

Many of you will recognize this in the form of comments sections, but it comes in other flavors, like a person with tons of Facebook contacts or whose social interactions are primarily on a message board. I'm going to specifically talk about comments sections because it's something I get asked a lot.

No, I don't read them, and neither do many other successful writers I know. The reason is probably simpler than you think. Obviously, if someone liked the article, they're going to tell you that you did a great job and to keep it up. Then maybe show you their boobs in appreciation. So if you look past those comments (and nipples), any actual technical feedback comes in a negative fashion, and those are just wasted words.

I'm a weekly, paid, contracted writer for the site, which is why I have the title "columnist" instead of "contributor." That means that just like any job, I have a boss to report to -- a team of editors who greenlight my article or send it back for revisions or a total rewrite. Their feedback means something because 1) they pay me and 2) I know their accomplishments in this industry. They've proven to me that they know how to describe testicles in a way that pulls in readers, and because of that, their feedback has value to me as a writer and an employee. I or anyone else can see the immediate benefits of following that advice by simply watching the hit counter at the top of the page.

The same can't be said of MeatSlap187. If you whittle out the commenters who are just flat out bitching for the sake of making noise, the leftover people who are offering genuine advice are doing so in a manner that (as David Wong once described it) makes it sound like they're giving a job evaluation. And the only people who are qualified to do that in any meaningful manner are the people who actually control my employment, the people who have experience in writing on a professional level.

It's a matter of considering the source of the advice. If I had two identical emails telling me I'm a lazy, douchebag hack -- one from the editor-in-chief, and the other from a random reader -- the email from the editor would be the only one that would mean something to me. It's not that I'm being a dick to the random reader. It's that it's physically impossible to respect and value the opinion of someone you've never met. You don't know if they have an agenda. Or if they were in a bad mood. Or if they have experience in the subject or in the actual field of writing. Or if they simply misunderstood something you wrote. Or, for that matter, if they even read something you wrote.

A reader messaged me a short while ago, absolutely livid over an article I wrote on the Occupy Wall Street generation. Just this enormous wall of text, ranting about how I didn't know what the hell I was talking about and (the old go-to insult for anyone who likes to bitch) how I should "do my research." The only reason I didn't close and delete it is because I noticed that every point he was making was the exact point I made in the article. When I told him that, he actually apologized, explaining that he had only read the intro and then immediately skipped down to the comments section instead of reading the actual article. Everything he knew about the piece was taken from people who didn't understand the article in the first place. People who, just like him, were complaining about things that they actually agreed with.

Sadly, that's more common than I'd care to admit.

2 Instigators

They Say Things Like:

"He was late to dinner again? You need to dump him and get it over with. He obviously doesn't care about you. He's probably late because he's out cheating."

"If that son of a bitch said something like that to me, I'd punch him in his damn mouth. If you don't do something about it, he's just going to keep on doing it because you're letting him."

Why It's a Bad Source:

Ever been to a family reunion where that one uncle gets shitfaced and picks a fight with his brother? Then after he storms off, drunkenly weaving his car into the sunset, the rest of the family turns to each other and dominates the rest of the night with that conversation. "What the hell was that all about? Did you see the way he just flipped out over nothing?" People love a good conflict. Just ask the group of girls constantly pressuring their friend to dump "that inconsiderate asshole" based solely around the one-sided relay of a single argument. Or the teenager, telling his friend that the next time that dickhead customer comes in, he should drop his burger on the floor and then serve it to him.

If you'd like to see an immediate example of this, pull up virtually any message board with a thread from a person requesting advice. A person claims that their neighbor keeps taking their parking spot, and some random dumbass will eventually tell them that they should key his car or shit on the hood. "That'll teach him not to fuck with you!" Of course, unless they have a legitimate mental problem, they'd never do that themselves because they have enough common sense to know that they'd get into legal trouble, as well as a probable ass-fisting from the neighbor. But it's not their problem, so why not?

They're the kids gathered around the playground in a circle, chanting "FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT" while two other kids argue. The reason is because there's little to no entertainment value in a peaceful resolution. People want to see escalation, so why not give it a push in that direction to kill a little boredom?

If you look at the posting history of these types of people, you can always pick out the emotional baggage they're bringing into a thread like that. They're suggesting that a person tell their boss to fuck off and then walk out of their job because that's something they really want to do themselves ... if it weren't for the fact that they're smart enough to know that they need a paycheck, and burning that bridge means having a gaping scar on their work history. So they tell you to do it instead as a means of experiencing that fantasy through your actions.

For them, it's consequence-free, so why not suggest it? If you come back two weeks later and explain how you just got out of jail for destruction of property and indecent exposure, their reaction will be celebratory: "Hell yes! It was totally worth it!" Meanwhile, they still have a job and a clean police record.

1 Smart-Sounding People Without Experience

They Say Things Like:

"Quitting smoking is just a matter of willpower. Just grit your teeth and do it. Look at me, I've never smoked a day in my life, and I'm doing awesome!"

"You should apply for a job at the call center. That would be easy as hell -- just sitting on your ass in an air-conditioned room, reading troubleshooting tips off of a piece of paper all day. You'd basically be making money for doing nothing."

Why It's a Bad Source:

This is the most common source of bad advice you're ever likely to encounter. It comes from people who mean well, and they may even be educated in the subject you're discussing. But they lack the one thing that gives their advice solid, concrete value: experience.

The one I see most frequently is people without children giving advice on parenting. It drives most parents nuts because, before they had kids, every mom and dad on the planet had a firm grasp on what choices they'd make when they had their own. And once they did become parents, every theory they ever had on the subject got stuffed directly into their assholes and fired into space like some sort of parenting ass-cannon. It's not like you imagine it's going to be, but you don't know that until you're knee deep in the experience. It's the difference between star gazing and actually walking on the moon. Imagine trying to explain to Neil Armstrong that he was doing it all wrong -- that the correct way to walk on the moon is to use more of a hunching motion to scoot along because all studies point to that method being more effective.

He'd laugh you out of existence, even if you had a Ph.D. in astrophysics to back you up. Because until you've been there and experienced it for yourself, you're just talking in theory. It's the same with parenting. All the classes in child psychology don't amount to jack shit when you have one kid drawing dicks on the wall with lipstick while the other has somehow taken a bottle of pills off of the top shelf where you thought it was safe and is now sitting in a scattered pile of them on the floor.

"Well, I took care of my little brother, so I have a pretty good idea what it's like."

As soon as you leave the room, we laugh until we can't breathe over that line. Yes, we as parents do understand that there are a few rare cases of extremely abusive households where the parent(s) just tune out and you're left to do all of the adult stuff that they were supposed to be doing. In the other 99 percent of cases, what you did with your little brother isn't even close to what it's like as a parent because you had an escape hatch back then. You weren't the one paying the bills and buying the groceries and attending meetings with teachers and getting his vaccinations. You may have done some of that, but the fact that you're still sane says you didn't do it all. And if something went wrong, it wasn't on your head. It was on your parents'. As a parent yourself, that escape hatch has been welded shut. This is now truly yours -- all of it.

I can't stress enough how vastly different book education is from "driving your child to the hospital at 3 a.m. while covered in his vomit" education. There's just no comparison.

And it's the same with giving advice on things like depression or addiction. Unless you've felt either of those things for yourself, it's impossible to truly understand what the other person is going through. Their mind is working in a manner that yours does not. It's like trying to explain to someone what eggplant tastes like if you've never actually eaten it. That doesn't mean that only a heroin addict can help a heroin addict, but unless you've actually experienced working with one firsthand, or been there while a loved one has gone through it, it's not only impossible to advise a person on the subject -- it's downright fucking dangerous.

For more sources of bad advice, check out The 50 Creepiest Pieces of Romance Advice Ever Published and 7 Psychotic Pieces of Relationship Advice from Cosmo.