The age of advice

I learned the power of saying no at my very first job, an ice cream store just a few miles from my house in Kentucky. The store owner’s elderly mother, Marge, begrudgingly became the manager because her daughter only knew how to buy franchises but not run them herself (or so Marge said). Marge was publicly rueful and hated managing the store. She told all of us teen ice cream scoopers how she wished she could go back and tell her daughter no, you better run that store by yourself this time, and no, I will not up and leave my retirement to churn ice cream. So when I told Marge that, sure, I could cover a double-shift one weekend, she must’ve known what I really meant. She responded along the lines of You can say no if you want. Sometimes a question really is a question.

Some of the best advice is from people who say they regret not taking it themselves. That ice cream store closed down about a year later and I like to imagine Marge kicking her feet up on her recliner, the clinging scent of waffles cones a fading memory.

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There is a study from the University of Chicago that says people may benefit more from giving advice that the recipient does hearing it. Something to do with inner reflection and condensing life events into digestible sentences. Psychologist Dr. Leon F Seltzer puts it succinctly in Psychology Today: Advice-givers “may actually care less about whether you accept their advice, and more that you value or validate it.” Depending on the person, advice can be either a gift or a burden.

I’ve long known that I’m terrible at receiving advice. Sometimes it just takes time and hindsight to understand what someone said was advice at all. And sometimes it takes social awareness to realize people like to dump advice as a thought exercise, or as a way to philosophize and feel mentally superior if only for a fleeting moment. Men typically fall into this latter category. Maybe this is why I’m so hardened to most types of advice-givers; I’m always questioning why they’re giving it in the first place. In fact, one of the four horsemen of my own personal apocalypse is a man giving me unsolicited advice.

But when it’s readily obvious why someone’s dolling advice out, advice born from regret, I listen hard.

My dad’s mom taught me early on what to expect from men. She had stories about dating boys and marrying men and falling in love, stories about rocky relationships and missed opportunities and moving on. She wrapped each story like a fable. So, Jen-Jen, you gotta trust your gut. And hear this, stick to your guns. And first and foremost honey, believe in yourself.

She taught me to not let stupid boys treat me like I was stupid too. I think she realized early on that I was boy-crazy and that I absolutely flung aside my personal opinions if a cute boy entered my periphery vision. I was visiting her during the summer that I officially started dating my first boyfriend — I was 13 or 14 and 100% positive that he was The One. After dinner one night she drove just me and her home on the scenic route, a decision I’m only now realizing was to buy us a few extra minutes away from her husband and the rest of my cousins. She asked about “that little boyfriend of yours,” what his interests were, what type of person he was, if I would bring him to town next time I visited. She listened carefully to my responses, nodding along as I explained my worries and concerns (the chief of these at the time was that he was categorically dumb, which he did turn out to be). Granny took a turn telling me about her past relationships too: Boys she courted and let woo her in her teens, her first marriage to my dad’s father, her second marriage to my aunt’s father, and her third marriage to a different man altogether. She set this backdrop for me, this tableau of boys and men she’s met and gotten to know, and told me this: Love will make you forget your own brain sometimes. When you like a boy and realize he’s a little bit stupid, you have to be real careful he doesn’t make you stupid too. She continued on. The second he starts to treat you like you’re any less smart than you actually are, you gotta get out of there before you’re too dumb to leave. We laughed, I promised I’d do just that, and the evening slid away.

Her advice was poignant. After trial and error I soon learned to embrace her words and am now in an incredible relationship with someone who makes me feel smarter than I probably am. After meeting my now fiancé for the first time, Granny told me he was a good one. After she passed away in August 2019 I learned more about her life and even more about her most recent marriage to a man that’s now her widower. She was daring and proud, hilarious and witty, compassionate and sly. She had a gravitational pull about her. I see now that, yes, maybe a few stupid boys entered her orbit too.

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When I first moved to Los Angeles I finagled my way into a coffee meeting with a development executive from a fairly large media company downtown. I complemented her outfit (this is dedicated to memory: Chunky neon earrings, a black lacy and sheer Victorian high-neck blouse, high-waisted wide-leg black pants, shiny Oxfords, and a vintage Prada ruby crocodile tote) and she paid for my latte. We were talking about what my general goals were and what my tentative plan was. I told her the advice I had received over and over: Work as an assistant for a few years until my boss values the merit of my writing and promotes me into a creative role. She responded with a few comments, a few suggestions, and one ultimate piece of advice: Don’t trust your employer to do what’s right, ever. About a week after our meeting I learned that her department was indefinitely closed and her entire staff was laid off, including her. So, reader, let’s heed her advice.