"They think I'm giving them hell. I'm just telling the truth, and they think it's hell." - President Truman

Someone said recently (not to me, just in general) "I'd rather you be honest, once and for all... if not, I'm out."

I half-chuckled at the statement. I don't mean that pejoratively but what made me smile was the interesting truth dichotomy in the statement, and it got me thinking about truth relative to human interaction, social interaction that is.

Rule #1 of Human Interaction is... "Don't ever tell the truth, unless you are CERTAIN the situation is of extreme polarity." I.e. it's either really important, or really useless.

Now, this sounds pretty shitty when I put it like that, but think about it for a moment. The classic and easy example is "Do I look fat in these jeans?" - I'm not trying to target anyone by implication here, I'm just using the most obvious example (to me.)

The correct answer to that question, requires NO evaluation of facts and is some variety of "Not at all!"

Now, I've used this example many a time before, and the truth element of it will vary. It's possible the jeans don't make you look fat, or it's possible that you may look fat in ANYTHING you wear. But being truthful will almost always yield less than positive results, so we lie through our teeth to make someone else happy.

Moreover, the whole purpose of asking a question like that is to solicit for positive answer. The question isn't being asked for the sake of the truth, the question is being asked because the person asking it wants someone to make them feel good.

How fucked up is that? Take the same concept and apply it else where - We lie to make others feel better, never mind what the reality of the situation is. People lie to us in fear of making us upset or to try and obtain a positive reaction. Don't forget, the origin of the term "Being conned" comes from the word "Convince." (Also note, our entire political structure is, at this point, based on conning people into marking a box.) Can you ever tell if someone is being honest or just trying to make you feel better?

Now, more than ever, we're concerned with how we feel, with what makes us feel good instead of what really is.

Many talk about being individual, yet all the while they cater to the pack by trying to seek positive social responses from others, instead of actually saying what they think. We even misrepresent our lives through the mass of social media like Facebook and Twitter. There's a separate blog post on that I edited out of here. Suffice it to say - Everyone wants to tell the world how perpetually awesome their life is, when the truth of the situation is, we all have our ups and downs.

Most people don't genuinely want to hear the truth. They want to hear what makes them feel good. Every failed relationship is a result of dishonesty, generally on the part of both human beings, not just one or the other. In the end, I chuckled because the question that always strikes my mind when I hear something like that is, "Is that REALLY what you want?" For 99.999% of people the answer is, "No, I really don't."

I think this may be why I went from a glib socialite that could work a crowd and woo the ladies, to a hardened dick seems socially awkward and can't find a girlfriend to save my life. I got tired of bullshitting people and more importantly, myself.

The downside, is that I'm now typing this knowing full and well that I have "recently" started bullshitting the world again and it's because loneliness struck about two years ago. I think it's time for a change of direction.


Edit,and P.S.: I'm not saying I've been bullshitting friends and family about me. Just that I've left many parts of me at home when I venture out. I've decided to start bringing them with me.