Lifestyle

What It's Like To Be Great At Giving Advice, But Horrible At Taking It

by Sheena Sharma

There’s one thing all girls know too well. It’s a truth perhaps “truthier” than all other truths: At some point in our lives, we fall for the bad boy.

He's the nimrod and a scumbag excuse of a person. He's filthier than the gum stuck to the bottom of your shoe.

But don't worry, ladies. We all do this.

Objectively, the guy is horrible. In retrospect, the guy is horrible! There’s no easy way around this one. He’s bad for you from every angle.

We girls are all different, but in one way we're the same. We ignore the best advice. Your girlfriends tell you to run as fast as possible from your scumbag-of-the-moment. You know they’re right.

When all is said and done (heh), one group get-together leaves you feeling like the most empowered woman to grace this planet.

And yet you do everything in your power to get nearer to him. Your head and your heart are hardly connected.

Friendship is a two-way street; it works both ways. A general rule in the book of "girl code" (and "decent human being code") is to give advice with good intentions.

You know you lead your friends in the best way you know. You make it clear which turns are right and wrong -- even if you're prone to taking wrong turns yourself.

When all is said and done, your real feelings are living proof that you aren’t the best example of an empowered women. When talking with your closest friends, you feel a darkness rising from within. Your toes begin to tap, and your mind begins to race.

You try to combat the voice inside you. It's the one that's telling you that knowing what's good for you doesn't mean doing it.

All of a sudden, you’re giving out tips that you’d never follow. They sound good, but you know you'd never follow them yourself. You’d spend your entire life keeping your best girlfriend from her bad boy, but you wouldn’t spend a minute questioning why you keep going back to yours.

For one reason or another, it’s so much easier to give people advice than it is to take our own. Things are easier said than done. But we’re just contradicting ourselves.

You’re a good friend and a great liar.

Without you, everyone would be lost. You’re everyone’s rock. At any minute of the day, your phone is blowing up with messages that read “What would you say?” and “What would you do?” You respond with meticulously written texts that have step-by-step instructions.

But you’re lying through your teeth, and you’re great at it. Lying is one of your most well-cultivated skills. You’re a f*cking blind babbler.

You mindlessly spit out words of wisdom that have weight for other people -- but never for you.

You’re chastised and misunderstood for being both dumb and wise.

People ask you if you were ever dropped on your head as a baby. To be honest, you can’t blame them. One side of your brain works just fine, but the other one can’t keep up.

It’s galloping through La-La Land. This is the side of your brain that’s telling you to jump without looking and act without listening.

Your friends try to make you see what you’ve helped them see all along. It should be impossible for you to be so perceptive and yet so ignorant. But it isn’t.

You can dish it, but you certainly can’t take it.

You’re a fancy wordsmith and a pitiful listener.

You’re a goddamn poet. You have the gift of being able to craft words of gold and take everyone’s breath away. Each word is handpicked for every special occasion.

But your ears are confused. They simultaneously ring and ache. They thank you for having great friends, but they hate listening to the advice that your friends dish out.

If only you could listen to the people who know you best and hear what they're actually saying.

Your greatest strength is giving sound advice, and your most shameful weakness is not taking it.

You’re easily influenced by your surroundings.

You're the envy of everyone else. You have great willpower in the presence of your friends. On your own, you have none.

You’re a warrior when surrounded by your army. But when you leave their company, you find yourself right back to entertaining bad ideas and bad decisions.

You’d be nothing without the squad.

You give others the benefit of the doubt, but you doubt yourself.

We love our friends and family, and we feel that they deserve the best. So why don’t we think we deserve the best? And if we do, then why don’t we act like we do?

We can acknowledge we’ve done something wrong, but we can’t acknowledge why we’re doing something wrong. I don't know why I’m so good at handling my friends and so bad at handling myself.

Deep down, I wince at every word that comes out of my mouth. It seems practically incredulous to me.

But we need to believe ourselves. We need to learn to be friends with ourselves.