A blog about advice, not an advice blog

Somebody once said that a mind is a terrible thing to waste. I definitely agree with that. Believe me, no part of my mind ever goes to waste. I have to use all of it to complete daily menial tasks, like walking and remembering to eat.
But almost as tragic as wasting a mind, good advice is a terrible thing to waste. And I fear my 23 years of wisdom and experience are currently serving no greater good. Because in order to give advice, you need someone to take it.
I am an older brother, but my brother Corey doesn’t usually take my advice. For example: I went to visit Corey at college in Indiana recently and tried to get him to flirt with this girl who was totally flirting with him. Well, I guess it’s debatable if she was flirting with him or just talking to him. And she was working in a customer service field at the time, checking out sports equipment. But people who flirt (talk) with you even if they’re working aren’t just doing it because they sort of have to, are they? Like waitresses? If that’s true, I’ll be crushed!
Sean’s brain: Of course that’s not how it works. Waitresses flirt with you because you are a cool guy. Here, let me release some endorphins.
Okay, good, that’s better.
Anyway, I think the reason Corey often ignores my advice is he’s seen my body of work. Sure, I’ve made my fair share of not-so-smart decisions. And my brother knows about most of them. But the way I see it, somebody needs to benefit from my trial-by-error experiences.
Just because I wasn’t necessarily a “ladies man” in college doesn’t mean I don’t know how to react when a girl is flirting with you. I told my brother he just had to be confident and ask the sports equipment girl what her name was, where she lived, etc, and get her phone number. Unfortunately, as I was giving him this advice, she was still standing directly in front of us. But that just provided more trial-by-error advice for him: tact is very important.
But really, I’m surprised Corey doesn’t want to be a younger version of me because in many ways, we are very alike. First of all, no matter how reluctant we are to admit it, we look a lot alike. Yes, there is another person out there blessed with these looks (you can stop laughing now). Case in point, when I was visiting my brother I told him I wanted to see if I could still blend in as if I were a college student at age 23 (which I’m sure would work, since most people seem to think I’m either an NWC student or, more frequently, a high school intern). So I told him for this weekend, I wasn’t his brother visiting, I was his cool friend. Five minutes later, a lady in the dorm cafeteria asked us “are you guys twins?” It didn’t take long for that cover to be blown.
Me and my brother even share the same enormously gigantic head (thanks to our dad). You think I’m exaggerating, but that photo of me above had to be shrunk by 500 percent to get it to fit. Our head size leaves us both susceptible to head injuries. It’s a proven fact. He’s lived a relatively head-trauma free life so far, but not so for me. I think it’s just that our heads are so big, the odds of something happening to them increase exponentially.
That’s why the only person who’s ever randomly had a light fixture fall from the ceiling of a parking garage and hit them in the head is yours truly (about five years ago). The gravitational pull from my head must have caused it to come crashing down. This is yet another area where my advice could be helpful: recovering from head trauma.
Though I wish my advice had an outlet, the truth is, Corey is doing fine for himself without it. Except maybe in the girl department. Instead of actually asking out the sports equipment girl, he “facebooked” her. For those who don’t know, Facebook is a popular Web site where you can post a profile about yourself and list other facebookers as your friend, and see if they respond in kind and list you as theirs. Last I heard, sports equipment girl had yet to respond to my brothers’ facebooking.
No worries, though. The final piece of advice I gave my brother was: “There are plenty of girls out there who would be ecstatic to be facebooked by you. If sports equipment girl doesn’t want to facebook back a good looking, albeit big-headed guy like yourself, that’s her loss.”
See what good advice I give? But since my brother doesn’t really listen to me, I’m available as a mentor if anyone’s interested. Just facebook me, I promise I’ll facebook you back.