What is the Best Advice?
By: Chiara Bruzzi
Your friend approaches you with an impossible situation: what do you do?
Sometimes my friends approach me with what I like to call an impossible situation. The type of situation that no matter the advice I give, they will find a way to make an issue out of the newly found solution. My roommate and I often talk about the frustration that comes from such conversations, especially when it’s about a friend’s “significant other”. In most cases, the answer to the problem is that the friend’s partner is either toxic or manipulative. The friend should leave this person and find happiness or try to heal in a better environment. But, because this is an “impossible situation”, your friend will lead you to dissect, analyze, and come up with a very intricate solution to the problem. While it may be tempting to give in to the argument and begin the dissection process, this can lead to a rather emotionally taxing and time consuming conversation. To save everybody some time, I’m going to give you the secret technique my roommate and I decided to use when this situation presents itself. (This actually comes from a TikTok my roommate saw, so I take no credit for this extremely powerful technique.) When your friend starts talking about their situation, do the following: listen attentively, wait for them to be done, look them in the eyes, and kindly say, “If that’s what you think you deserve, then you should stay.” Poof, magic. They will look at you weirdly and be so thrown off by the fact that you didn’t give in to their emotional trap that they have no choice but to actually reflect on the situation. Had you said this in any other way, you would have gotten a different result because a more complicated sentence would have allowed for the possibility of disagreement. This sentence is so effective because it is short, sweet, and reflective.
This is probably the most helpful post that I have ever written so please memorize the saying and use it.
Save yourself 2 hours of arguing about something that doesn’t have anything to do with you or about a person that you knew was bad news all along. Other people’s issues are not your own, and there should be no reason for your friend’s relationship to turn into a rocket science problem for you to solve.
Talking about rocket science… There are a few other situations that can lead to the same type of emotionally taxing work. For these situations, I provide some pretty cutthroat advice.
- If you’re wondering if a person likes you or not, they probably don’t. It’s sad, but it’s the truth. If they want to, they will show that they like you. It’s not that they’re incapable of answering a text, it’s that you’re simply not one of their priorities. Save yourself some time and peace of mind and onto the next you go!
- If you have been on delivered for more than a day: they’re not that busy… they are just trying to ghost you. In this case either have a conversation so that you can settle the relationship or just walk away.
- If they hit you up as a sneaky link and you think that after months it will turn into something… it probably won’t. For a sneaky link relationship to turn into something meaningful it requires work from both parties. It requires the two of you opening up and engaging in meaningful dialogue that extends beyond the pre-hookup small talk.
- Lastly, if after many months of hanging out and “being together,” they still don’t want to be exclusive with you then BYE. If they are too scared to commit to something that they are already subconsciously giving their time to then they are either playing with your feelings or too emotionally insecure to understand that you actually matter. There is one more reason that I have found for why people do this, and this is perhaps the most diffused explanation for college relationships: they are too immature to understand that hook up culture is toxic and dangerous.
I will leave you with this idea of hookup culture to let you figure out your opinion on it before I write about it.
Of course every relationship is different, and this advice might not apply in every case. But, if the right opportunity presents itself, don’t be scared. Use the sentence and see the way your friend reacts. Comfort them if needed, but remember that other people’s issues are not your own.
Take time for yourself as much as you take time for others <3
this is great work chiara but it’s mostly true for people who are emotionally healthy and who are good at communication 😁