We’ve been told it since we were kids, don’t lie, always tell the truth, the truth will set you free.  Blah blah blah.  I can’t disagree with the moral argument, but let the record stand that The Truth is also a number of unpleasant things including (but not limited to) inconvenient, baffling, and painful.  But if you’ve spent any time at all thinking about ethics and have a noisy conscience (as I am blessed to have), you teach yourself to believe that these inconveniences, these baffling and painful circumstances that The Truth exposes you to are Good and Right and Character Building Experiences.  Which may help you sleep at night, but at the end of the day, does not keep those circumstances from less inconvenient, baffling, and painful! 

Honesty has been the most baffling for me in relationships, be they with my friends, my family, my romantic interests, or at work, because so often what is important to us can’t be described adequately to another person.  Just because something is The Truth for me, doesn’t mean it can translate easily to someone else.  I regularly have to tell the people who come into my office for help that I can’t do the things they want me to, or need someone to do.  You’d think practice would make it easier, but I never get used to the look of bafflement. 

Dealing with my family has largely been painful because, for various reasons, The Truth is the one thing we can’t tell one another.  The Truth, with my family circumstances has historically led to horrendous blow ups, disowning, and long, exquisitely torturous family reunions.  No one seems to be able to grow up and call one another on our BS (myself included).  I stood up to my mother for the first real time in my life last year, and as a result, I didn’t go home for Christmas because the truth of the matter was that The Truth hurt too much.

But as baffling as bafflement is, and as painful as pain can be, it is my personal opinion that inconvenience is the worst part of truth telling.  For example, I went out with the IRS Victim again tonight for the last time (although he didn’t know that until the end of the night).  He’s been awfully sweet to me, almost to the point of making me seriously annoyed, and has been actively pursuing me which is a nice change from most of the boys I know…but The Truth is that I wasn’t feeling any sort of connection with him and hadn’t even after the first date.  I said I’d go out with him again, initially thinking that he deserved it for being so nice, but The Truth was I wasn’t looking forward to it. 

I had to tell him, it wasn’t fair to him to let him go on.  This logical and rational decision was easily made and not at all painful to contemplate, but the execution was horribly inconvenient!  Going out with him tonight made me feel rotten, trying to be nice and fun without leading him on was a headache of logistical planning, and telling him firmly (if rather incoherently and in-eloquently) at the door that, no I was not going to go out with him this weekend, was worse to me than my horrific response to his asking me out in the first place.  I was miserable.  His whole face just sort of dropped and he got this look in his eyes that made me look like I’d just skinned a puppy in front of him.
“Why not?”
“Because,” I said, “the truth is that I like you as a person, but not enough for anything more.  I’m also dating other people right now and there’s real potential with some that I’m pursuing, it wouldn’t be fair to you to say ‘yes’ when my answer wants to be ‘no.'”
“Oh.”  There was a long silence as he looked at me before he murmured, “Well, thanks for telling me the truth.”

Yeah.  The Truth, in all its inconvenient glory.  I did the right thing, I was honest…and I still feel like a wench.