“People who are brutally honest get more satisfaction out of the brutality than out of the honesty.” – Richard J. Needham
As a teenager of about 15 or 16, I identified myself as brutally honest but I quickly got over that phase and realized that sometimes people want lies. Still, if somebody asks my opinion on something, then I will give it. I try to be tactful about it if it’s negative though.
Good old fashion vanilla honesty is a good start!
Yeah, I mean, there’s a way that you can tell the truth in a way that hurts somebody and a way that you can tell the truth in a way that doesn’t hurt somebody.
Like if your girlfriend has a fat ass and she asks that if her dress makes her ass look fat then you can say “the dress makes your fat ass look like the fat ass that it is” or you can say “it complements your curves”
Neither one is a lie, but one is intentionally spiteful and hurtful, and the other one is like, okay, you obviously like the girl you don’t care about how fat her ass is.
“That dress does not make your ass look any different than it already is.”
You’d think a non-commital blank statement like that should work. It does not. One then must explain themselves. Night out: ruint.
There’s a 3rd scenario which is not having the ability to detect when you are expected to lie to be nice.
Or it being extremely energy intensive to detect that situation.
It doesn’t even have to be lies! I think the key word you said is “tact”. We are adults, not toddlers. Most people actually empathize with the person they are talking to, not just blurt out whatever comes to mind…
Except a lot of adults are unfortunately still at toddler levels of emotional maturity…
I think it’s interesting where our minds go, mine went to being brutally honest about myself to other people, so it goes into tmi sometimes, and sometimes I do it to watch them squirm about something they asked
There are many ways to express any given truth, or facets of the truth.
“That dress makes you look fat”
“That dress doesn’t flatter you”
“That dress fatters you”
It’s not only that the 2nd version conveys no real info to work with. It’s just politely avoiding answering without saying anything of substance.
But. It totally matters who the recipient is. My wife or friends? Sure…brutal honesty. I’d expect to receive the same.
The business - partner 's wife? Maybe not so brutal. 😁
You and someone else got hung up on the specific example. I’m sure I could have come up with a better example where the raw and nice version conveyed the same amount of information.
“That dress makes you look thicker than a bowl of oatmeal”
Problem is, the second statement doesn’t give any information about why the dress is unflattering, which deprives the individual of knowledge they could use to actually improve their situation.
Imo, a better option is to combine straightforward information with emotional support - eg, “Hey, so I love you, but as your friend I wanted to let you know, for your own long term benefit, that that dress makes it clear how many cookies you ate last Christmas.”
that’s like saying words have many meanings depending on their intonation. ofc they do.
Change my mind: people who “tell it like it is” are just assholes who don’t want to improve themselves. Like, I’m bad at social situations as well, but I’ve actually spent the time improving and I don’t say everything that comes to mind. Considering the other person goes a long way…
That phrase is largely used by assholes trying to make their rude commentary come off as honesty. I haven’t ever heard someone say that in good faith instead of trying to avoid angry backlash for something said.
Telling the truth, while sometimes harsh, is vital in a good communicative friendship where challenging our peers helps them to grow and leads to closer connections in the long term.
Considering the other person goes deeper than ‘does the truth hurt their feefees and should I lie about it’ but yes, there’s often a kind and unkind way to share hard information with someone.
TL;DR Context is huge for when to apply it, though largely honesty is the way to go and someone claiming they’re ‘telling it like it is’ is just a way to twist out of responsibility for their lack of tact or empathy
If you need to lie about it, perhaps consider if you really need to speak about it.
There is a difference between considering someone’s feelings and assuming someone’s feelings. And I have experienced the difference enough times when I just need information and all I get is misplaced consolation.
“You Really Think Someone Would Do That? Just Go On the Internet and Tell Truths?”
I was accused of trolling not more than an hour or so ago because I said I never liked Sonic the Hegehog on Sega Genesis.
I didn’t say it sucked or was a shitty game; I just said I never got into it and explained why. 😮💨
Wtf? sonic probably hasn’t been good in my entire lifetime
I just don’t like Sonic. 🤷♂️
I tell the truth in all but the most necessary psychological self-defence because I’m having difficulty remembering that I need to get stuff for dinner tonight, I dont need to keep track of an intricate web of lies on top of that.
Have you had any new funny accusations of being a troll?
Actually, that’s not the truth. That’s propaganda from <insert person or group I don’t like>.
You would say something like that, wouldn’t you?
schill
If sitcoms taught me anything early on in life, it’s that lies are just too much trouble to keep track of.
Yea I have kids in my basement now what
