Dear Lee: How to handle a friend who keeps giving unwanted advice
Navigating unsolicited feedback and the friendship-saving question that makes us all a better friend
Welcome to Dear Lee, the advice column where we dive into intense topics like how my habits shifted after leaving extreme wellness and the truth about leaving a lucrative career (spoiler alert: it’s hard). Want a topic covered? Submit your question anonymously here, or you can message it to me by clicking this button:
Hi Lee,
I have a close friend who means well, but she has a habit of giving me advice even when I haven’t asked for it. I value her support, but sometimes I just need her to listen without jumping in with suggestions. How can I gently communicate this to her without hurting our friendship?
Signed, no feedback please
Dear no feedback,
I love this question so much, and I feel inclined to answer it because I’ve been in this situation before.
First of all— I agree with friendship expert
who argues that for many women, friendship is often the biggest source of tension in our lives.This podcast episode with her (not so ironically sent to me by a friend) covers this quandary, noting that friendships today look vastly different from what they were just 50 years ago, back when we couldn’t even buy a home without a man’s approval. We’re navigating new dynamics without the language, guidance, or healthy examples to model after, especially when it comes to building and maintaining meaningful female friendships.
Our grandmothers’ friendships were often formed through their neighborhoods or places of worship, where proximity and community played key roles. But I’m willing to bet your friendships today extend far beyond these boundaries, don’t they?
I just want to offer some validation around why friendships can be so tricky to understand before diving in.
Let’s get into your question.
Have you ever had a rough day and just needed to vent, but your friend starts offering advice you didn’t ask for?
Even if you need to hear it, but now *is not* the time? Her advice, even if it comes from a good place, can feel overwhelming, judgmental, or strewn with pieces of criticism.
In moments like these, what we often crave isn’t someone telling us what to do, but rather a safe space to let it all out. There’s nothing more affirming than a friend who simply shows up for you during a tough time—listening without judgment, without trying to fix anything, promising to see you through to the other side of whatever you’re going through.
Whether your friend is offering opinions about your dating life, career choices, or how to handle family matters, it can sometimes come across as critical, intense, disapproving, or even harsh.
It’s understandable why people like to give advice. It feels good to make other people feel good. Offering suggestions to solve your problem may make them feel like they’re saving the day, while also boosting their identity and self-esteem. Or, it might be the specific “role” your friend plays in your relationship dynamic, which I go more into below.
(Author’s note: it’s not lost on me that I’m writing an advice column on how to avoid taking advice from a friend... but maybe, advice from me (an internet stranger) is easier than from a personal friend? And hopefully, you take my thoughts with a grain of salt, too.)
Regardless of the why, her advice is not always what’s needed or welcomed, especially if it’s coming from a place of criticism.
Here’s how I recommend handling that friend who’s always offering advice, even when you haven’t asked for it.
The rest of this column is for paid subscribers only. In the rest of this essay, I share:
how to put up a boundary with your advice-giving friend
when you probably SHOULD take your friend’s advice and how to decipher if it sits well with you or not
the one question I love to ask my friends so I can support them when they are going through a difficult time
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Now, back to the simple phrase I share with a friend before I tell her something I don’t want advice on: