When I was 15 my mother began referring to me as Dear Abby.

It was the spring of my sophomore year in high school. Our house in Chula Vista was just half a block from Hilltop High, and maybe that’s what facilitated the parade of advice-seeking friends, but I had so many visitors that I seemed popular.

Most of the girls who came by were cuter than I, more Southern Californian, less good in school, and successful with boys. My male visitors tended to be a year ahead of us, smart, fit but not jocks, witty or comical, and into those girls. They all brought me their questions, mostly about the opposite sex (and sex) but sometimes about grades, parents, politics, the future.

It wasn’t a new thing. In fact I’d been mouthing off forever, and since talk (if it’s not stupid chatter) provokes talk, I’d been hearing secrets and making comments for years. So I’d had some practice. I was pretty good at listening and suggesting.

We moved to Marin County half a year later, but I continued to correspond with at least a dozen for at least the rest of high school, and then went on to Cal (new friends, many more issues) and provisional adulthood and parenthood and self-employment. In short, I haven’t stopped providing advice. I’m pretty good at it. And when I’m doing it, I’m a kinder gentler person than when I’m not.

A month ago Danny asked my advice about how to give advice. He’s 28 and he modestly noted that he’s just started on his life path, so how can he possibly know enough to guide others?

“Oh,” I blurted, “you don’t have to know the answers. You’re not a guru and that’s not what advice is.”

Here’s what I told him.

First you have to determine that the friend wants advice. It’s a waste of time and credibility to give it when it’s unsolicited. The friend has to ask for it and the request has to be sincere.

Then you have to carefully describe what you hear your friend say and compare it to how your friend is acting. There’s usually a significant discrepancy between what she says she wants and how she’s choosing. You have to be careful and honest here. If the contradiction is huge you may even have to back away from the conversation. Because it’s not okay to shake someone up to the point of partial-wreckage unless you’re aboard for the (time-consuming) reconstruction that needs follow.

And you have to remove your self from the questions. Only on rare occasions will it be appropriate for you to say “If I were you…” Most of the time you’ll be saying something like “I’ve noticed you do such-and-such, but doesn’t that contradict your stated intention to do so-and-so?”

You’re trying to help them back into sync. Either their words or their actions need adjustment, and you point that out, but you don’t get to decide which.