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Good read thanks...  Here is another one... from an amateur of course

A friend of mine rang a helpline - she was really run down  because her husband had died. They used to spend all of their time together so she was now alone most of the time.  The helpline said she must get out more and make more friends.  She explained to the woman on the helpline that she is old, disabled, got no transport. The woman waved this aside and told her to go on a long holiday to somewhere like Australia, an English speaking country, mix and mingle a lot, get to know some peeps, make friends, then when she comes back from her holiday abroad she would stay in touch with any friend she had made there and have a penfriend. And when she gets lonely and fancies meeting up with  a friend all she has to do is arrange to go back to Australia or wherever for a bit and see her again  ! !!

The friend pointed out that she is disabled and struggles to get around locally and has many days she can barely go out the front door  She is very limited with money.  And she wants local friends not ones the other side of the world.

The so called agony aunt said ah but this is what you to do get a friend. And you will return from your holiday with a penfriend. You can write to each other!!

Friend pointed out that she does not need a penfriend, she already had some, and she got those off a free penfriend site. There is no need to spend money to get a penfriend. The penfriends you get off a penfriend site are a lot more serious about it and reliable than someone you bump into on holiday and you do not need to spend a lot of time and money on travelling to meet them.

The so called agony aunt said ah but you will have made a friend!

Two years later I spoke to my friend about this and she has picked up two more penfriends off penfriend sites. Without having to go out of the front door, travel, cope with her disability when out or spend money.

And I agree with her that someone who you meet on a holiday is probably not even going to bother with writing or emailing after. They were not looking for that, but a penfriend on a site is looking for someone to write to.

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I've got a great example for you. A friend told me about this happening to her a few years ago. She is a young woman living alone. She rang a help line where you ring if depressed and this is what she got. Bear in mind that she was self employed so did  not get paid when not working, and a professional person. She was looking for friends in the area and tired of meeting people who were too old for her and had nothing in common with her.

The help line person said she should go around to the old ladies in the area and do their housework and chores for them - all for free - and show them what a kind and caring person she was. Then after a  few months or so HOPEFULLY the old ladies would decide that she is nice and caring enough to be allowed to be one of their friends and visit them as a friend.  Wow.

My friend was gobsmacked. The help line worker knew she was self employed and living alone, so on the days she was doing that she would be getting no money coming in to pay her bills. They also knew she was a professional person, she would not have been interested in doing chores like washing up and shopping if the people were offering to pay her, she had studied and trained up to be a lawyer!

Maybe the helpline worker meant for her to be a lawyer during the day times and do the chores evenings and weekends, but in a way that is even more ridiculous, as she would never have time then  for anything else, not even seeing family or necessary chores for herself.

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The help line person said she should go around to the old ladies in the area and do their housework and chores for them - all for free - and show them what a kind and caring person she was. Then after a  few months or so HOPEFULLY the old ladies would decide that she is nice and caring enough to be allowed to be one of their friends and visit them as a friend.  Wow.

My friend was gobsmacked. The help line worker knew she was self employed and living alone, so on the days she was doing that she would be getting no money coming in to pay her bills. They also knew she was a professional person, she would not have been interested in doing chores like washing up and shopping if the people were offering to pay her, she had studied and trained up to be a lawyer!

If someone had said this to me I would be furious. Why would this appeal to someone? For one thing she wants friends not people whose house she is cleaning, for another I doubt she would want to be friends with very old ladies - the ones I have met when I go around working as a visiting nurse are not much fun, moaning about their appetite or lack of sleep or aches and pains is not much fun for a young friend. But there is also this bit about if you clean their house or do their chores for free it is like you are paying them money for their friendship. Like they are so special you have to give them money before they consider you worthy of socialising with.  Like they are Royalty and you are greatly honoured to be in their presence. It could have had a terrible effect on this lady's life if she had taken this stupid advice seriously, thank goodness she had more sense.

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Got a few for you...

I know a neighbour, an old lady who is housebound, no transport, usually stuck indoors due to age and illness. The doctors realise she is housebound and supposedly accommodate this. When she needs a blood test they send a nurse to hers instead of asking her to come to surgery or hospital. This has worked well for years.

A new nurse turned up for the blood test. My neighbour jokingly said that usually the nurse lets her know when she wants to come to make sure she is not "busy". 

Her doctors etc know she works from home online with zoom meetings with clients and she cannot be disturbed when working with a client who has made an appointment. So they let her know when they are going so she can make sure she is not busy with a client and unable to go to front door to speak to them and see them.

The nurse went ballistic and shouted at her losing her temper saying that as she is well enough to work she is a fake and a scammer and if she can go out to work she can go to the doctor or hospital for her tests. She will report her.

My neighbour politely but firmly pointed out to this silly judgmental nurse that she works from home. The doctor already knows all this and has done for years.  She cannot be disturbed when working.        Yes she is old and housebound but she has an active mind and she needs to keep it busy and she needs to earn money!  The nurse skulked off with a long face.

Oh here is another one.  Neighbour told another neighbour about this encounter with the nurse and the stupid neighbour said she should stop working so that whenever a nurse wants to come for a blood test they can just turn up without having to let her know which day.

If she had listened to this stupid advice she would have ended up with no money coming in, dying of boredom.

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I like all of the others I've read so far and will return to read more later...

Here is my offering...

A friend of mine, who is estranged from  her mother after years of serious abuse from her was talking about this with a neighbour. The neighbour asked if her mother was able to do her own housework and she said she did not really know.  The neighbour - who knows where she lives and much more - said she should regularly go to her mother to do her hoovering for her.

This completely over looked that they had no relationship. The mother had abused her for many years. She lived a three hour drive away.The cost of petrol and time off of work would have come to a fortune. Far more than it costs to pay someone to come in and do some hoovering.  It would have worked out far quicker and cheaper to pay a cleaner to go in and do it.  The mother had plenty of money to pay for her own cleaner. The neighbour also overlooked that the estranged daughter was younger but had a serious lung condition which made it hard for her to any of her own housework. But none of this was her problem anyway.

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Got a great one for you. Know a headmaster, a very reputable and established professional person who decided to retire. He very much wanted to concentrate on his social life now and not do any work at all. He could have worked as a well paid tutor privately. But no, nothing to do with work was of interest. He had had enough of anything to do with being serious and responsible and helping others.

He rang a helpline because he was down about not having a social life and friends. He had tried a few places but had nothing much in common with the people there. The woman he chatted to said he should go back to the whist club he went to (which is a card game he said) and he should offer to be the unpaid volunteer helper of the group every monday, working as the "helper" of the lady who takes the money at the door and makes them cups of tea in the interval.

It's the sort of thing a school leaver with no qualifications or skills does.

Then to make it even worse this so called helper on the phone suggested he volunteer to help teachers for free as their helper at a school. Which would have meant he returned to working in a school. But instead of making decisions, using his brain, and being well paid, he now does the boring , trivial, menial things for free, taking orders from people with less education and skill than him.

How on earth was this going to improve his social life? There is no way it could.

For a start if you go to whist every monday you might as well play the game. It is more social.

And from what I've heard it is always the same people who go each week, once you have met them you h have met them, if you do not make friends with them then that is how it is, it won't change if you meet them every monday for the next ten years.

This guy is a highly educated guy, he wanted to make friends. Not do voluntary work. And if he had wanted to do voluntary work he could have got something more interesting and with more skills involved.

I've noticed this before. When you talk about wanting to socialise more or you retire people get this idea it means your time is now a free for all, anyone can help themselves to it, your time should be offered to anyone who wants it, you are just there to please others, it does not matter if whatever it is is unpaid or boring, that is all besides the point.   But what is the point of retiring if you are losing a good income and doing something very boring instead?  You are better off then not retiring.

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I like all of the comments I've read here today thank you. Here is my own contribution.

A well meaning but stupid person told my sister that she should get a dog and walk it every day so that she could meet people and maybe make friends.  The person who gave her this well meaning advice knew that she could not afford a dog, knew she was too old and unwell to take care of a dog, and knew she was not well enough to go for long walks. Did that stop them from suggesting this? No. Because this is how stupid the person is.

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They did a psychological test regarding all this. It turned out that when someone starts to give someone advice their brain lights up and they get a sort of happy buzz from doing it. And the person who is being told what to do gets the opposite where their brain dulls down and it can cause irritation, anger etc.

I can understand when an expert gives advice, but also an expert does not go around offering free advice, they will be so expert they get sick of people wanting free advice and will only do it when it is paid. It would be their paid job.  If it is not their paid job then they are not really an expert, just pretending to be one.

One of the most stupid things I ever heard from a self appointed advisor was this...

It again involves dogs!   A woman had retired from work and wanted a pleasant relaxed life. She wanted to make friends. The person advising her said she should take her pedigree dog all around the country to show in shows. They had no sense because to do this you need a car, a lot of money for petrol, a lot of money to stay at hotels, and you are never at home, you are forever travelling around. You might meet people and you might like some and get on fine with some but it is useless to you for friendship because you are off again to somewhere hundreds of miles away and it would be amazing if you were ever in same town at same time and able to meet again. It would be very, very lonely.  You need an enormous amount of money to do this, and time, it is no good if you have children to take care of, or any commitments or family you want to spend time with, and you would never meet up with "friends" again unless somehow you were both at the same show at the same time, but never enough time to actually be friends. A lonely existence.

Then when you are older you become too ill to travel around and show your dog. Then what? Are you supposed to get rid of your dog? Do you sell your car?  You now have no friends except for a few people you met a long way away that you do not know well?  What a rubbish life that would give you.