We all know these people.

For some, it seems like this is a hobby. Hopping from one dramatic train wreck to another, always looking for advice on how to fix something that they were advised not even a week ago not to do by everyone and their dogs to avoid like the bubonic plague.

Hell, my ex-husband used to accuse me of doing the opposite of what he said all the time.

In my view, that’s because he often gave bad advice, backed up with crappy logic. Once I realized that, I respected him less for it, and it was the beginning of the end.

But, to be fair, I also stopped asking.

I had a woman approach me privately from Whips Chains & Duct Tape, asking after information about whips and whip play.

I don’t know much about whips. I’ve never taken time to learn about them or to understand the skill, and they hold little appeal for me, so I put her in contact with a friend on the other side of the slash who enjoys them and knows quite a few people REALLY FUCKING skilled in using them.

She also asked me about this new relationship with the potential whip top that had so many red flags, that a green lawn covered in them would look like the flag of mother Russia.

And I said so.

She thanked me profusely, and said she’d reach out to my friend.

Two weeks later, she was back.

She’d ignored everything I had said, everything my friend had said, and had done the opposite, and was now looking for advice on drop, sexual abuse, physical pain, drug use during play, AND… how to tell her wife—who she never mentioned before—and get someone else “who might be better” to top her.

SMDH.

I reached out to my friend, who also did not know that there was a wife (the woman had presented as a single newbie, and was focused on a male top), nor had she any indication that there was going to be actual play versus research going on.

sighs

And this woman has popped up more than once since.

She has spiraled into abusive situations, her wife has left her, and she wants advice on how to “fix it.”

My advice in my head sounds a lot like “Stop being you, and be someone who listens to advice.”

My advice to her is, “I have and will make suggestions. However, I think you’re better off finding a professional that might be able to help you with multiple issues at one time, and be there for you, while I’m across the country.”

And I can’t help but wonder if this person is:

• Obstinate and willfully ignorant.
• Mentally unstable.
• Making the whole thing up.
• Seeking attention.

And I have to wonder these things. Because I don’t know this person.

But I do know people like this. In my community. In every community I’ve ever been in (kink or otherwise). And they can be one or a multiple of those things.

And eventually, I personally have to cut contact.

Sometimes, they become a serious red flag as a meta for me as well (which I know is kinda judgy—well, judgy AF—but I know and accept my flaws in this), and I also look people over very carefully if I learn they are friends with any on that mental list of mine.

Because I know the way that they run their lives sucks others into dangerous and difficult situations, which them creates a ever-widening area of drama quicksand.

I’m not saying…

I’m not saying (at all) that if someone asks my advice they have to take it.

I’m pretty sure I give shitty advice at least some of the time, if for no reason other than because I don’t actually know their situation, or the people involved, or whatever.

However, there are those who seem to ask for advice repeatedly, and never seem to take it, and then lighting the most fucked-up bonfires of humanity I’ve ever seen.

Really, though, it’s not my problem.

I give the advice that they ask for because I’m willing to give it.

It’s not an exchange of my advice for their compliance. It’s a gift. What they do with it is their right.

To be fair, though, when I see those matches heading straight for the dumpster fire, though, I’m that much less likely to want to give that gift in the future, knowing it may just be used as “Don’t to this, to achieve the most shitty debacle, ever.”