Why “there’s other fish in the sea” advice sucks
There’s a lot of shitty advice out there. Trite, hackneyed “words of wisdom” that either have no impact whatsoever or worse, do more harm than good.
Some examples include:
[Following a death] He/she is in a better place.
Just be positive. [Oh…okay. I’ll flip the switch.]
Calm down. Don’t worry. [Again, oh…okay. I’ll flip the switch.]
Just be yourself. [Really? Pray tell who the hell is that?]
But the leader of the pack of shitty advice?
“There are other fish in the sea” or other similar post break-up advice.
Why?
I’ll use an example to make my point:
You own a puppy. A cute puppy. You love this fucking puppy with all your heart. But he runs away, in the dead of night. He shacks up with another puppy and you’re left entirely alone. You’re beside yourself, grief-stricken, heartbroken. Then a friend says to you: “You know what you need? Another puppy!”
No, no you don’t need another puppy! You want the damn dog that left you. Another puppy would actually make you feel worse, not better. You have no heart connection to this new puppy. This puppy’s a stranger!
That’s because people aren’t replaceable like that. You don’t just swap one out for another.
Another example:
You desperately need your best friend to talk to but he/she is nowhere to be found. Would a casual acquaintance do instead? How about the mailman or the cashier at the grocery store? NO! You need that friend and his/her kind of comfort or words of wisdom. Not just anybody.
Seriously, can you imagine “there are other fish in the sea” ever really being effective? Like you offer up those hollow words to your heartbroken friend and he/she says, “Wow…you’re so right. I never realized there are millions of strangers I could date. I didn’t do that math. Are you sure there are other people on this planet?”
So on top of being bad advice, its crazy over simplistic.
The takeaway? The next time someone you love is going through a divorce or a break-up, just listen instead. People don’t always want to be “fixed” when they hurt. They want their very personal sadness to be recognized as important and not easily repaired (or hey, they would have repaired it right?).
