Advice?

When I am faced with a major decision I often turn to a specific person that I am close to whom I feel will understand. Some situations I survey several people I am close to for advice and take a mixture of the advice. In general I turn to who I feel will best be able to help me based on the level at which they know me.

I found reading a few sides from www.sidetaker.com really interesting. One was about him not being supportive of his wife going back to school because he wanted a larger family right then. Well that was an easy side to take. But others like the women dating the man who recreationally smokes pot, but not wanting to date a recreational pot smoker is a little tougher to pick a side. Personally I can easily pick a side, but why is dating the guy if she knew this?

For me the situation depends if I would trust the crowd or the advice columnist more. I currently volunteer for an online teen help site as a Mentor. What I do is open messages other members have sent and see if I could reply. If I have a good response I reply, however each message is replied to about 6-8 times. So the member asking for advice is getting a selected crowds advice. I personally think this is a good method because each person in the crowd was selected based on a level of commitment and questions we answered but none of us are experts.