The amount of times I have heard someone say “Oh I just said that because I did not want to hurt their feelings” is one too many. They tell the other person “I’ll definitely come to that,” “yeah we can hang out next week,” “you are cute I just am confused right now.” White lies run rampant in our society, justified by the fact that the person who tells them doesn't want to upset or hurt the recipient.
News flash: the reason you are saying that isn’t to not hurt the other person but it is because you don’t want to look like a bad person, you don’t want to have to face the confrontation.
By telling people these lies you might be protecting their feelings in that moment, but nine times out of ten it ends up coming back and biting you in the ass. You end up leading the person on, them thinking that you really are a friend or that you really are interested in them, only for them to realize that it was all an allusion.
How many times have you seen someone not turn someone down because they didn’t “want to be mean?” Only for a couple days or weeks later that person reemerge in their lives asking them to hang out because they were under the impression the other person was interested. At that point rather then having politely told them you weren’t interested in that moment, they know have lead them on for so long its even harder to tell them no.
Now I am not saying that I don’t tell a white lie, unfortunately its just part of society, but I try as hard as I can to avoid it. I prefer to be more honest up front so that the person understands my intentions and wont be warped to believe something that isn’t true. For me it is easier to come off as the bad guy to ensure that the other person doesn’t end up more hurt in the long run. But then again, its a lot easier said than done.
Even though I am writing this I don’t blame people for telling white lies. Confrontation is never something that is easy to deal with, let alone start. It can be extremely uncomfortable when breaking bad news to someone, especially when they haven’t done anything that is wrong. But at the end of the day the reality is that we have to find ways of dealing with situations like this, and that begins with questioning why we do what we do.
So, when we tell white lies we have to ask who are we actually protecting: the other person or ourselves?
