Honesty the best policy Vs. some things better left unsaid

I was born with a compulsive need to tell the truth. When asked a question it almost spews from me so uncontrollably that I've said something before I've even had a chance to think it through. I can't tell you how many times I've been left not listening but nodding along to a conversation while trying to keep up with my internal monologue of "You complete fuck wit, what did you say THAT for? You should have just lied." Great for my parents when I was a rebelious teenager, not so great for me as it seemed like I was constantly in trouble or upsetting someone. But I always believed that people knowing the truth was a lot better than being a liar. As a teenager, I even declared in the front of my diary "Do Not Read This. If You Do Read It And Don't Like What You Read Tough Shit You Shouldn't Have Read It." What a delightful young girl I was, no, really.

I'm not sure why I'm this way. Partly I think its becasue I have seen a lot of pain caused by lies. Partly its because my mum always told me honesty was the best policy and deep down I'm a good girl who wants to do as she's told, not to mention my other compulsive need to please people, but that's a whole nother blog post. Despite all this, as I get older I am coming to realise that maybe some things really are better left unsaid.

We all tell tiny white lies to be polite: "What a cute baby" (actually it looks like a chewed up toffee), "You look well" (I always feel like this translates to "you look like you've been treating yourself to too many takeaways" but I may be wrong) and millions of other niceties we use to be polite. You can totally shoot yourself in the foot by telling polite white lies: "What an interesting sounding job, tell me more" (Oh bollocks, why did I say that? Now I'm going to be sitting here listening to the ins and outs of his boring job when I could be replaying the latest episode of The Real Housewives of OC in my head).

Sometimes we ask questions that we don't really want to know the answer to and we force people into lying to us: "Is that girl prettier than me?" and the ultimate "Do I look fat in this?"

Sometimes we tell a white lie to protect someones feelings then, because we feel we might not be being completely true, we add a back up statement. "Yes it's a lovely top/dress/shoes. Not something I'd wear myself though." Which I'm not sure actually makes that much sense and think may be more of an underhand put down than telling the truth in the first place.

Most of us tell lies every day, especially to our kids: "Yep we'll be there in 5 minutes" (when actually its at least half an hour away), "no you wouldn't like this cream cake its made from cheese and you don't like cheese do you?" And my personal favourite: "playing with your winky will make it fall off".

But let's be honest here, seeing as we're talking about honesty, none of those little niceties really matter. Being polite is just curteous and helps maintain the status quo but what if it's something you feel is important?


I can name a number of situations, usually between friends, where one person feels the other person needs to know that they are not happy about something that has been said or done. This is a tricky situation. Things are said. Feelings are hurt. And sometimes friendships have been destroyed by what at the beginning was a simple clash of principles (let's face it, everyone is different and if we were all the same we would be bored). Should you speak up if you disagree with something someone has done, even if it has nothing to do with you? What if they have said something that has hurt your feelings?

I used to think yes, in particular if it's someone you love you should tell the truth, get it out there and have a grown up discussion about it. Try and resolve it. But sometimes in life things just can't be resolved. Things can't be undone and actually talking about it just creates momentum behind something that might not have really bothered you in the first place or at least after a few weeks of things settling down. My new rules are to ask myself: Does that thing that you have a problem with really affect YOU? And if so how much? Enough to hurt someones feelings? Enough to destroy a friendship or at the very least cause weeks of potential stress and upset? Nope, I have learned the hard way that some things really are better left unsaid.

I'm not going to change the habit of a lifetime and start lying all over the place, so those of you that know me can feel safe in the knowledge that more or less, what you see is what you get and I will continue to spew forth random truths that have no real place being anywhere other than inside my head, but I am certainly going to try to think before I speak and try and decide whether or not telling the truth is really worth it.

What does everyone else think?