Everyone has opinions. The question worth asking before sharing yours is whether anyone asked for it. Hellbeing on the distinction between having a thought and deploying it.
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
Everyone Has Opinions. That Does Not Mean You Have to Share Yours.
The phrase is “opinions are like assholes — everyone has one.” Which is true. The follow-up question, which the phrase does not address, is whether anyone asked to see yours. Because there is a meaningful difference between having an opinion and deploying it unprompted on someone who was minding their own business and did not request a review of their life choices.
The Unsolicited Opinion and Its Natural Habitat
The unsolicited opinion arrives most frequently in the following situations: when someone has just made a decision, when someone is in the middle of doing something, and when someone mentions anything about their life in passing. You have a new job. You have a new relationship. You are eating something. You are wearing something. Someone has a thought about it. They share the thought. You did not ask for the thought. The thought is now in the room and you have to do something with it.
The thought is usually framed as helpful. “I’m just saying” is the standard opener, as if prefacing an opinion with those three words reclassifies it as a neutral observation rather than what it is — a person inserting themselves into your decisions without being invited. “I’m just saying” does not make the thing that follows more welcome. It just announces that the speaker is aware it might not be.
The Distinction Worth Making
There is a version of this that is fine. If someone asks for your opinion, give it. If someone is about to do something that will actively harm them and you have information they clearly do not have, say something. These are situations where the opinion is either requested or genuinely relevant to the other person’s wellbeing.
What is different is the opinion delivered because you had it. The comment about someone’s food order. The take on their career decision. The view on how they handled a situation you were not part of. These are opinions produced not because the recipient needed them but because the speaker wanted to express them. The distinction is entirely about whose needs the opinion is serving.
What the Unsolicited Opinion Is Usually About
Most unsolicited opinions are not actually about the thing they appear to be about. The comment about the food order is about the commenter’s relationship with food. The take on the career decision is about the commenter’s relationship with risk. The view on the handled situation is about how the commenter would have handled it — information useful only to the commenter.
People share opinions in the same way they make small talk — because it feels like connection, like contributing, like being involved. The problem is that contribution is only contribution if the other person wanted it. Otherwise it is just noise with an agenda.
The Simple Test
Before sharing an opinion nobody asked for, one question: does this person need this information, or do I just want to give it to them? If the answer is the second one, the opinion can stay where it started — inside your head, where it was already doing its job of existing without inconveniencing anyone else.
All feedback is relevant somewhere. Not all of it is actionable here. Not all of it was requested. Not all of it needed to leave your mouth. The fact that you have a thought does not create an obligation for other people to receive it.
More at Infernal Insights. The apparel does not ask for your opinion either.
Frequently Asked Questions
Usually because sharing the opinion feels like connection or contribution. The problem is that contribution is only contribution if the other person wanted it. Unsolicited opinions are almost always about the speaker’s need to express something rather than the recipient’s need to receive it.
The most effective response is brief and non-committal. “Thanks for that” or “I’ll keep that in mind” closes the loop without agreement or argument. Engaging with the content of an unsolicited opinion usually extends the conversation in a direction nobody wanted.
Feedback is requested or contextually implied — you asked for it, or the situation clearly calls for it. An unsolicited opinion is delivered because the speaker had it, not because the recipient needed it. The distinction is entirely about whose needs the communication is serving.