What do you do when someone refuses to RTFM?

I have a good friend back home who is very adept at things like 3D modeling and knows his way in and out of the software he uses. He's generally very computer literate. At this point he wants his own website to advertise and showcase his modeling skills. The trouble is he knows absolutely nothing about websites, to the point where he didn't understand the basics of having domain space and uploading things to it. He essentially didn't know what a website "is," even though he surfs the net every day. He wants a cool site with a blog and static pages. 
 
So anyway, getting him set up with some domain space was an ordeal in itself, but he managed to get some space with GoDaddy, and off he went trying to use their crappy "site builder" to make a site. I explained to him that he was going to be very limited in what he could do with such a tool, and that to build a blog you have to use some kind of CMS - essentially Wordpress. It took me ages to explain how ridiculously time consuming it would be for him to update a blog using the drag and drop functionality of a crap page builder. 
 
So eventually I persuaded him that he needed Wordpress and with a lot of confusion he managed to get it installed on his domain with the help of a GoDaddy support guy. And after looking around for a theme, he bought a paid one call "X" (which is an excellent theme and coincidentally the one I'm using to build my new site). 
 
The trouble is he knows absolutely nothing about Wordpress or how it works on any level, and he's thinking that if he just blindly stumbles around poking and prodding things, he's going to bodge together a great site. The addition of the X theme on top of that, which is actually quite complicated, is just making things worse because he doesn't realize what's core Wordpress functionality and what's part of the theme. He's trying to start building his site without having learned the basics of either Wordpress or themes, and every time I talk to him on Skype he's about to blow a gasket because he doesn't understand why he can't change this or that, he doesn't understand any of the terminology associated with any of the concepts and he is basically wasting time yelling at the screen wondering why the side bar is there, how to get rid of the breadcrumbs, how to make this bigger or that wider and what-have-you. In addition to this he doesn't understand the concept of a blog versus a static page, or a blog index page and a blog post page. With this in mind I directed him to the Lynda.com Wordpress course which is excellent and explains all the basics. He now has access to this course but has told me he can't be bothered to watch it. Every time I speak to him I say "mate, you're going to have to watch this course." And he just goes "Urgh....so boring....I've watched a few of them and they don't tell me what I need to know." It's like a 70-odd video course (all short and to the point kind of videos). I know he has barely watched any of them. 
 
The trouble is that if I get onto Skype with him and coach him for an hour or two, he starts to begin to understand what's going on. But as soon as he goes away on his own he starts up his usual blind prodding and poking and then I get messages saying 'ARGHH! WHY CAN'T I MAKE MY HEADER TRANSPARENT! I DID IT BEFORE!" etc, and as you can imagine it's getting a little stressful because at the end of the day he just will NOT knuckle down and get through these basic tutorials. In the time he's wasted with this crap he could have watched that course 5 times over and then gotten stuck into all the X tutorials, which are another thing entirely. 
 
I think he's desperately thinking that with a few 2-hour long Skype coaching sessions with me, I can make it all better and get his site up and running. But I just feel like I'm wasting my time when I know that as soon as that Skype call is over, he's going to ignore what I told him (or forget) and start poking and prodding blindly again. How do you deal with someone who is so utterly against learning something properly? I really get a buzz out of teaching someone something that I know, and seeing their gradual enlightenment, but I feel like in this case I'm just wasting my time until he's watched this course and absorbed it. Should I just be frank with him and cut him off entirely until such a time as he can show me that he's learned the basic concepts? 

bapu
What's a manual?

Something you put under your butt on your chair so you can sit higher?
 
As for the actual question, you basically need to spell it out for him:  Either you read and watch the training materials (you can offer to answer the occasional question), or start figuring out things yourself.

No RTFM, no Q & A ...
 
Quiz tomorrow

I hate when that happens...
 
I will answer their questions to some arbitrary point (until they tick me off) or the occasional question but then get real stupid and tell them they have to read the manual. They will either learn it or give up.
 
Harsh but that is the only way I have found to break them of wanting me to read the manual for them.
 
Or, if it is something simple (take less time for me to do it than teach them how to do it), I will set it up for them and then just show them how to make updates.

I'm thinking of setting a test to see if he's actually watched those videos.

Thing is he also expressed a recent interest to start making beats as well. I can only imagine the frustration he'll go through trying to learn a DAW.

Sharke,
Your friend isn't going to read the manual.  That's what YOU'RE for (in his mind anyhow)...
 
I've had clients (and family members) that do the same thing. 
Overall it ends up you either 1) doing it for them or 2) torturing yourself by hand holding them all the way through the process (at no compensation to you)...
 
I feel for you.. 

bapu
RTFM?
 
Regulate Transatlantic Flight Meals?
 

I do this (as well) very poorly..

 
 
ICMU
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
P

Read Hegel.  He'll describe your relationship.  Some are masters and some are slaves. The slaves want to be masters,  the masters envy the slaves religion ( I just added that). I have to tell you that both have their perks!

Ham N Egz
TL;DR
 
try being a telephone help desk support person..
 
I was for a nationwide finance/mortgage company where our users varied with regards to their technical skillets.
 
Sometimes took 30 minutes to determine the actual issue. I am glad I no longer do that job

In the 90's, I did support for a finance/mortgage company too. Yes, the tech knowledge of the users was all over the board.
 
One comes to mind of a new secretary that called saying her mouse wasn't working. After a few minutes it became obvious that the mouse was on the floor and she was trying to operate it like a dictaphone foot switch.

That mouse story reminds me of when I was in tech support (for a healthcare utilization review company - I led a small team there).  We had one nurse call and say her mouse was dead.  I mentioned that it might not be plugged in securely or maybe a driver wasn't being run, but she replied that she was pretty sure that it was dead.  So, bringing a replacement with me, I went to her office and, sure enough, the mouse was dead.  Someone had swapped out her PC mouse for a "real" (albeit dead) mouse.  Having a good sense of humor, she played along and we all had a good laugh.  Naturally, I disposed of the dead body by slipping it into the lunch bag of the guy we knew played the joke on her.  It seemed like the right thing to do, ya? 

It's actually harder than people think to describe computing concepts to a complete newbie. So much of what you take for granted is alien to them. Ever tried explaining what files and directories actually are to someone who has zero experience with computers? 
 
I remember not 10 years ago mentioning to my mother that I'd bought a new computer, and she couldn't wrap her head around the fact that I didn't have a printer. She said "what's the use of having a computer if you don't have a printer to print out your work?" The concept of things having value just on the screen was completely new to her, her only previous computer experience being years ago in an office where computing always resulted in something coming out of the dot matrix printers on that stripey paper with the holes in it. I couldn't get her to understand at all. 

If only I had known all this earlier.

bapu

Jesse Screed
If only I had known all this earlier.

A case for reading the FSF in its entirety BEFORE posting there.

 See, that's what I don't understand.
 
Jesse Q. Screed