One of the comparisons that pop psychology books love to draw between men and women is that, while women show support for friends’ problems by listening and sympathizing, guys like to jump in and suggest solutions after hearing the first few words. Most probably the man is doing this while slouching in an armchair watching football, and if he is being very good about adhering to the stereotype, he’ll suggest completely irrelevant solutions that involve fighting or shouting:

“Honey, I’m having trouble again with—”

“I still think you should give that woman what’s COMING to her!”

“—the car.”

These Adam-and-Eve gender roles feel warm, fuzzy, and satisfying in self-help books with multiple exclamation points in their titles. In the real and properly punctuated world, though, women give plenty of problem-solving advice. It’s not so much that men have the monopoly on unsolicited rescue operations; it’s more that men often don’t even bother to LISTEN before doling out the helpful commentary.

As a congenital advice-giver myself, I was thinking recently about the motivation behind this urge to intervene. It’s almost a reflex action—description of problem enters auditory cortex, neurons fire, vocal apparatus begin to produce words. It’s entirely possible to start describing a fix before you even know what you’re doing—leading to situations such as the hapless football-watching alpha male goading his wife to beat up her car.

Obviously we give advice most of the time out of love. We honestly want the other person to be happy. What’s behind the URGE, though—what makes us blurt out suggestions thoughtlessly—is a need for importance.

People naturally crave a sense of value, and a role in things. At the same time that we want people to be happy because we care about them, we also want to CAUSE their happiness so we can be IMPORTANT for them. (This is why you can get practically anyone to recommend you for something so long as they can remember your name, you don’t smell like rotting shoes, and you’ve asked about their dog once or twice in the hallway.)

Is unsolicited advice really a good way of feeling important? If anything, I feel better able to help when I don’t have my own worth caught up in the desire for MY advice to be necessary and right.