I’ve often had people ask for an opinion when, in fact, they just wanted you to confirm what they wanted to hear.

Yes to the preceding. Sometimes when people "ask for advice", they want you to agree with something they decided to do.

Anything free is treated by most with having the value of what they'd paid for it. My profession required expertise of a type for which most people have great need and interest. And many, not all, have thought that there was nothing I'd rather do during off-duty hours than to give free advice. Nope! When something like that starts, I'll suggest a willingness to answer a brief question, conclude with suggesting they need to hire someone with proper qualifications and experience to help them, and leave it at that. It's often not what the questioner had in mind to learn from me Too bad.

Oooooh....we have THIS discussion a LOT! In our case no one asks us our advice about anything, it's keeping up with the Jones. They copy cat us and don't get the same outcome. Then they're mad and act like we should have "saved" them from making bad choices.

Lol, I feel like I should delete my post about my cabinets now.

@Kathsgrdn....ha ha I had to go look at your cabinet post.

I think moosemac's question is more like people asking for stock tips if your a stockbroker.

Nyuk, I have a brother who tells me that I'm the smarted one in the family and when he asks for my advice on any matter >>> he never takes it. Sometimes I'm tempted to give him my opposite/wrong opinion so that he'll end up doing the right thing ;-)

My younger sister would do that - a lot. It didn't matter what the situation was, either. My older sister and I realized that younger sis already had her mind made up as to what she was going to do, and would just ask various folks for opinions/advice in an attempt to find someone who would validate her preconceived thoughts/choices. It got to the point where when she'd ask me for advice/opinions/thoughts, I'd just say, "gee, I really don't know."

I am a retired health care provider and have constantly dealt with this issue, even after a significant number of years in retirement. I hate being asked and find myself resorting to uncharacteristic diplomacy. Now I try to guide people to qualified professionals but it's difficult for me because I don't live in the same area where I practiced.

Ha - I can think of some people in my life who never ask for my advice when I wish they would 🙄

FWIW, one of my sisters has always been one to dither over a decision and drive everybody around her crazy discussing it, then she inevitably makes a hasty choice and laments it ad nauseam 😄

Carol, I liked your post because you spelled ’ad nauseam’ correctly. 👍🏻

The only time people asked my advice was when I was doing astrological readings. I haven't done those in a long time, but people liked what I told them.

Hehe - I had to check the spelling, roxsol - thank goodness for spellcheck 😄

I would just say "In over 20 years you have never yet taken my advice, so I've given up offering it."

I find that is an issue with some educated, intelligent people. While they ask for advice, they often already think that they know better than the one they are asking. As jrb said, they want official confirmation from a professional, but will do what they want anyway, because they think they know best. My dad is like that. He has my BIL, who is a contractor, a master plumber and master electrician, do the repairs and renovations on his and my mothers home. He insists on knowing the exact plans for whatever repair or renovation, which is fine and expected. But then will stew over it and be convinced that he knows a better way to do it. And I mean for everything. Whether a full gut job for a bathroom or fixing a leaky faucet. It is a battle every time. Its his love for my sister and his general easygoing demeanor that keeps him from throwing his hands up altogether and refusing to work for them anymore. BIL does not have that problem with me. I text him with an issue, he comes to fix it, I send the money to my sister via Venmo. I trust him not to swindle me with unnecessary stuff.

I am not an expert on anything, but I fancy myself a great cook. And I get annoyed when people try my food, ask for the recipe, then change it thinking it will be better or the same and complain that it wasn't the same or was awful when they made it. I feel like that is along the same lines. Why did you ask for the recipe if you know how to do it better?

Everyone has intuition about certain things, and some are reluctant to act against it, even with advice from someone more knowledgeable and experienced. I was chatting with our company nurse when I went to get a flu shot, and she told me she abandoned working with the public because she and the doctors she worked with are getting increasingly angry at people who come in with a stack of paper they printed from Google about their symptoms, and have self diagnosed themselves, and they refuse to listen to professional advice, they just want the doc to write a prescription or run a test for what Dr. Google says they may have. There is advocating for yourself, and there is being irrational. And how even if they don't argue with the doc, they just do not comply with treatment plans. I can see how that would be irritating. MY former coworker and I both went to the same weight loss clinic. Their eating plan WORKS. It just does. But my coworker took issue with their ban on bananas. The doctor, when you start his program, runs a 2 hours class on WHY he prescribed this way of eating, and it goes beyond weight loss. He must have spent 10 minutes on the reasons why bananas are not a good idea. But my coworker could NOT let it go. He told me he argued with the nurse every single visit about being able to eat bananas. Even now, years after he stopped going, I told him I was going to start going back to lose a little weight and he sent me article after article about the virtues of bananas and wanted me to show them to the doctor. Just eat bananas then. Just eat them and stop asking what you should eat. He told you how to eat, based on 30 years of experience, practice, research and education. But you wanna eat bananas still. So just eat them and stop wasting his time.

I think you have the right mindset now. Just DONT ASK.