Tuesday's Time Waster - Giving Advice

Being a psychologist is somewhat of a passion. As a result, I end up in long winded (and unpaid) advice giving, feedback providing, and rant receiving mode on a semi-regular basis. This is okay with me as long as it doesn't get in the way of my being paid for my actual contracted work. Alright, the truth is, I'm a sucker for helping out my friends.

It all started in 6th grade on Kim H.'s garage rooftop. My 3 or 4 other gal pals were lamenting the state of their love lives and other critical life experiences so important to 12 year olds and, not having a love life, I was in the role of concerned friend and wise objective counsel. And it was AWESOME! I listened, asked thought provoking questions (such as "How did he look at you?" and "Did he really kiss her?") and dispensed life changing advice. This was followed less than a year later by concurrent life changing experiences of discovering among my dad's books "One Little Boy" which was a history of a sex abuse case and determining that, if what you do in lawyering is anything like what you do in Debate Club, I didn't want to be a lawyer anymore.

Now-a-days, I find myself listening to my friends issues and playing counselor all over again. I get paid at least $50 an hour for consultation services for my contracted work, but here I am basically pro-bono for my friends. Of course, being practical (and unpaid) I tend to want to dispense solutions quickly and move on. Also, it gets a bit murky when you end up in the middle between friends or friends and partners. I must say, couples therapists have a hard job to do and I don't want the $150 plus an hour to listen to this stuff, day in and day out! Anyway, a friend is struggling with what looks, to the casual observer, to be a midlife crisis. Without getting into detail, as her girlfriend chewed on my ear over the last couple days, it became obvious that my friend seems to be attempting to function while depressed. My friend's girlfriend is alternating between anger, frustration and concern. Icky mess, now that I have a bigger picture. Extricating myself from this now would be the wise thing. Especially, since said friend's girlfriend feels the need to come over with her Visa Card and swipe it through my butt crack...um...no thanks. But I do take paypal!