When you're little, you hear a lot about how honesty is important, that it isn't OK to lie, and that lying is wrong. And since you're a young, impressionable kid, you start to notice that you should be honest, and that lying will only make matters worse, but something strange starts to happen before too long. It starts out with little circumstances with your parents. For example, you finished the last of the milk in the fridge, and you didn't throw the container away. When your mom asked you if you left the milk container in the fridge, you say yes, and you get scolded for leaving the container behind, instead of throwing it away.
You've just told the truth and in return you feel like a bad person. But that's not even the worst of it. When you start to get older, you start to get involved with more complicated experiences. You'll run into different situations with different friends, where you learn that maybe you weren't such good friends after all. Honesty in relationships is supposed to be important, right?. But what are you supposed to do in a compromising position? It isn't uncommon nowadays to learn information about someone else? And when that person just so happens to be your friend, and you know this information can hurt them, should you be the one to tell them?
There are some people who are adamant, who believe that you should always tell your friends everything. On the other side of the issue, there are those that think, that if you know some truth that can hurt your friend, it's best to let it go, and not tell them. And then there are people who can see both sides. Yes, you should be honest with your friends, and they should be honest with you, but I know my friends well enough to know the kind of information that will hurt them in the long run, and in the end, you should do whatever you can to protect your friends.
I'm not saying that when your girlfriend tries on a dress and she looks horrible, to tell her that she looks great, but I am speaking to the more serious side of things. Like, if you hear random people gossiping about your friend, people that really have no bearing on your friend's life, what is the point in telling them? Just so they become hurt, feel insecure, and start to ask you questions you don't have the answers to? If they get this information from someone else so be it, be there for your friend. Some people call this lying, some people call this omitting information. At the end of the day, we are told that lying is wrong, but when we get older we learn that sometimes telling the truth and being honest, doesn't turn out the way we expect it to. When this happens, lying feels like the right thing to do, and in some cases, it might be.
