Is there any practice in the world more treacherous than giving advice to friends? I bet it has killed off more brilliant friendships than emigration, graduation, inebriation and maturation put together, yet most of us continue with this kamikaze practice of death by opinion regardless. Here's a story to show what I mean.
I have a friend who had the bad luck to get tangled up with a silver-tongued devil who both bewitched her with his charms and lied to her about everything, from his days off to the number of people he had snogged while they were going out together. His first version was "one - but it didn't count", his revised version was "about four". Anyway, he broke it off some months ago using the typical charmer's line: "It's not you, it's me. I can't explain." Her friends could all have explained perfectly easily using simple four-lettered words but for the most part we refrained and stuck to the simple technique of applying tissues and gin frequently and listening with gritted teeth. Problem is, she is still fairly besotted with the man and if he says, "come hither", she tends to say: "How fast can I get there?"
Last week, she bumped into him around town and, much to her delight, they had lunch and then spent the afternoon in the pub taking a dander down memory lane. He said he'd call her on her mobile the next day. Needless to say, he didn't and she spent the day with me, bewailing her fate and asking my advice about what she should do.
Now most of the time, I love telling people what to do. I never know what to do myself half the time but give me someone else's life and I instantly become an expert. Indeed, I'm so fond of telling other people what to do, that I have been known to make up impromptu statistics to back myself up: "Of course you should move into the Smithfield area. It's been shown in tests that 83 per cent of people that move into an area where horses once ran the streets are uncannily successful in business. Did you not know that?"
But anybody with a scrap of sense knows that you should be warier than the hybrid offspring of a Yeti and the Loch Ness monster when dealing with people who have just split up with their partners. You know the typical scenario: Friend comes to you in a devastated fury and tells you about the dastardly ex who has never understood her, has called her mother "the gimlet" for years and has now dumped her. In your desire to show loyalty to your friend you agree heartily that the ex is a fool of the first order who, by the way, is always making passes at all her friends and is a terrible bore at dinner parties.
It is, of course, only a question of time before the two get back together again and not only does your friend know you dislike her partner, but she will also probably tell said boyfriend, who will make shark eyes at you across the pub for months to come. Even if they don't get back together again, it's still not a very good idea to tell the truth - you're only setting yourself up for years of statements that start with the words: "Well, I know you never liked him, but Martin was always very good to me . . ."
So, of course I should have obeyed my instincts and said nothing directional to my friend at all. I should have murmured vague statements like "whatever you think's best" and put on the kettle. But because I was just so heartily sick of the charmer's abilities to play her like a puppet, and also sick of having to listen to the "will he, won't he" mantra every time he re-appears in her life, I went out on a bit of a limb.
It could have been worse, I suppose. All I really said was that she wasn't to dare ring him, that this was just typical of his selfish behaviour and that if he didn't ring it was because he doesn't want to see her and that was the brutal truth of the matter. We went out to the pub that night and after a few pints she sidled up to me looking guiltier than a Labrador dog, if that's possible.
She'd rung him of course, and discovered that he had lost her mobile number (hah, likely story) and had arranged to meet him later that night. She wasn't in the slightest bit angry with me for giving her such reams of advice. In fact, she was full of contrition for having been so weak. I, on the other hand was absolutely furious - not with her because she'd rung him or even with him for being such a chancer, but with myself.
I felt foolish for having got so worked up and indignant and full of high words. I felt irritated that my friend was coming to me looking guilty as if I was going to thunder at her like a headmistress or her mother. I felt aggrieved I had spent so much time sounding like a broken record and advocating never seeing the rogue again, only for her to ignore my advice completely. I felt stupid because I hadn't learned that whatever I said, my friend was going to do what her heart told her anyway.
In the same week, another friend also came looking for advice and showed me that it's probably best if people do follow their hearts and ignore my amateurish attempts to run their lives. After many years of liking her from afar, my friend had finally asked this girl from work out on a date and it had gone brilliantly. They were meant to go to the theatre but had ended up just staying in and talking for hours and ordering food and you could see that the ground and his feet hadn't quite connected in hours.
"That's it. I've met my wife. All my worries are over," he raved. After a few patronising words about how marvellously romantic this was, I said a few even more patronising words to the effect that he shouldn't put too much pressure on her or on himself by talking about the future so quickly. I told him not to play games but to remember the horrible truth behind the words: "Treat 'em mean, keep 'em keen."
I meant well, I meant to stop him from running out and buying her a florist, a chocolate factory and a book of baby names, and maybe frightening her off altogether. But when I met him two days later, I realised just how dangerous giving advice can be. When I asked how the romance was going he just said: "She's rung me twice already and I've been thinking about what you said. It's kind of true - I preferred it when there was a bit of a challenge."
I couldn't believe it. I had managed to create exactly the kind of man who had been letting my friends and I down for years, just by giving advice. So that's when I made my belated new year's resolution to shut up and stop giving advice. I will listen until the cows come home. I will offer trite phrases that suggest that everything will turn out for the best. I will repeat several times a day, "playing Cupid is just for the stupid". And I bet I'll break my resolution by the weekend.