Honesty

Stop the bullshit, I don't want to hear them anymore

A very good friend of mine got into a very awkward situation with me recently. As you probably would have guessed it from the title, he lied to me and I found out about it. When I found out that he was lying, I confronted him right away, but in a very calm manner. I gave him the chance to come clean, but he chose to shove more lies in my face and play a fool in front of me. So, after calming myself down, I confronted him about lying to me and things got awkward after that.

They say honesty is the best policy. Is it? Yes it is. I think honesty is one of the qualities I find most attractive in a person. (Nice ass aside) Being able to tell the truth takes guts and courage, not a lot of people are capable of that.

If you know me well enough, you should already know that I'm a person that shoots directly. I don't (okay, very rarely) tell lies. I enjoy telling people the truth, giving people my honest opinions, especially the harsh ones. Let me give you some examples so you know how honest I am.

“OMG Bii, your face! What happened?! Been stressing out lately?”

“XiangYin, I see you've been eating happily”

“Kane, you’re gay, accept it and stop making other people’s life miserable!”

“Jian, you are a mega CB when you’re gaming”

“Ayyy, Hui Min, I think your face got rounder.”

“Chai Leen, there’s a piece of lettuce stuck in your teeth, yeah there”

Yes, truth hurts. Everybody knows that, but as a good friend, I need to tell them the truth. Was it embarrassing when they found out? Yes, was it going to be awkward? Yeah, for a bit; But in the end, most of them appreciate my honesty. Xiang Yin got happier and showed me pictures after she slimmed down; Kane came out of the closet feeling awesome and less constrained; Chai Leen didn't have to walk around the city showing every person her lunch every time she smiles. Jian and Hui Min chose to be ignorant to my comments and live their happy life, no grudges tho ;) Needless to say, everybody appreciates honesty, whether the truth hurts or not.

Of course I am not telling you to walk around and gun down everybody with the “truth”. The examples above are only appropriate after you have established a certain bond with that particular person. I am honest, but I don’t walk around the city and go “Oh, you so fat” or “Damn, that baby is ugly”. Being honest and keeping quiet are two different things.

Back to the story, when I confronted this friend of mine, let’s just call him L for now, he didn't show any sign of being apologetic. In fact, he got all defensive instead. “I did this because I didn't want to hurt you” he said. I understand, from his point of view it was just to protect me but did he really? I was so hurt when I found out about the truth that it doesn't even matter to me anymore. I've lost trust in this good friend of mine. Things that he said to me started to echo in my brain; I couldn't tell whether anything he said to me before were real any more.

Remember this people; hiding the truth from your loved ones is only preventing the pain temporarily, it doesn't solve the root of the issue. “L” HATES confrontation and I do know that. I got really close to him although he’s relatively new in my life because he’s an awesome guy. However, he has this habit of sweeping issues under the rug, run away, hide in his comfort zone, chuck things out of his brain and also lying (buat bodoh) when things start to get ugly.

You won’t be free from confrontations in life so learn to deal with it. You might think that it’s comfortable and easy for you to hide or suppress it now, but you are not aware of how much toxicity you have been suppressing in your system, how things explode after they are accumulated and also how hurt your loved ones will be when they find out that you have been lying to them your whole life.

When you think about lying just to protect someone’s feelings, please also think about how hurt they will be when they find out about the truth. And yes, they WILL find out eventually, truth can’t be concealed. Did you not learn anything from “Frozen”? Did you realise how hurt Anna was when Elsa shut her out from her life and lied to her about her magical powers? How lonely she was after the truth was revealed and how things got better when she finally accepts the truth and shared her gift with everyone?

When you get cut, rinse it, clean it and treat it with medication. It stings, but it also heals and regenerates faster. Don’t just cover it up with a tissue and say it is okay. The blood does clot after a while and it still heals after a great period of time but you are risking bacterial infection and a high chance to leave an ugly scar forever. You are not a kid anymore, handle things like how an adult should.

Of course I’m not going to stop here after taking lies out from your life; there are things that can fill in the void where the “lies” used to be.

1) Practice Honesty

If telling the truth makes a person better in the future, why not? Grow a pair of balls, man up, and be the jerk. They will come back and thank you for your honesty later.

2) Use milder words, soften the blow or give suggestions to deal with harsh truth

I'm not asking you to be honest and shoot things like “OMG DID YOU JUST GAIN 10 POUNDS?” You could've easily helped the person by offering to share a meal or exercising together. Use milder words to soften the blow too, like “hmm, I think your jawline is less defined nowadays, stress?”

Any of those will be better than “You look fine betch, let’s go Ice Kacang”

3) If you can’t say something true, don’t say anything at all

Staying quiet to prevent yourself from saying something offensive or refuse to tell to protect your own privacy is okay. Your friends will understand and respect your privacy. Should they poke too hard, tell them off, lying is not the best option.

I'm not upset that you lied to me; I'm deeply hurt that I can never trust you any more

Good Luck in Life, L

Js

P/S I've used a lot of fat analogy in this post and I hope it doesn't offend any of the readers out there. I only say those stuff to my friends that are actually unhappy being fat. If you are happy, there's nothing wrong with being fat :)