Comments on: Standard Dishonesty

By: Markus

Markus — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 22:51:45 +0000

Todd, I love you.

Ty – at the end of the day why do you care what the old man thinks of you? If you feel like radical honesty would help him (and that’s really your gut instinct), just say it. Why do you need this man’s approval? Will it really matter to anyone in a hundred years?

There are also more tactful ways of getting your point across (like Chad suggested above). There’s always a way to get something across without challenging the person’s identity of self. I’m not saying I’m quite there yet, but I’m definitely interested in learning as much as I can about this going forward.

Great post, btw.

By: Todd

Todd — Sat, 23 May 2009 20:42:53 +0000

Walshy, you’re right, telling a girl you love her after seeing her twice isn’t going to fly, but not because girls don’t appreciate honesty.

It’s because guys who love you after seeing you twice are creepy.

By: feather

feather — Tue, 19 May 2009 16:37:20 +0000

Interesting blog post. I think radical honesty on an old guy would be pointless and socially uncalibrated. As you said, he made it this far… what’s the point in trying to change him now? Radical honesty on a younger guy though… probably a good call.

By: Chad

Chad — Fri, 15 May 2009 19:57:22 +0000

You could tell him a story about “this guy you met” who interrupted people all the time to talk about warranties and how someone mentioned it to him and how he learned to change his behaviour. If you tell a story they may not take it personally. Also, do a pattern interrupt. I remember a magician teaching other magicians that when a heckler starts to interrupt (common problem) continue talking, only a little louder. After a few attempts they’ll usually give up.
My 2 cents.

By: shanaz AL

shanaz AL — Tue, 12 May 2009 10:49:53 +0000

Tynan, I bumped into your blog place by googling ‘how to have a life’ and I have been reading post by very interesting post for the past 1 hour. I just love the way you write and the details that you pay attention to. Man, you rocked!

By: Dave Brett Wasser

Dave Brett Wasser — Fri, 08 May 2009 04:28:00 +0000

Great post, Tynan. I am always amazed that it is considered rude to point out someone’s rudeness. It’s the social convention, and there is nothing we can do about it.

So if you (or anyone else) had told this guy that he was being rude, he could have responded “YOU are being rude.”

By: Paladin

Paladin — Tue, 05 May 2009 22:21:40 +0000

Wow man! What a super post. I am all about honesty. I try to lie less and less, but it’s a process. I think it’s so valuable when people tell me the truth. Especially when it hurts. It’s a sign that they actually care about me having a better life.

By: lurker

lurker — Sun, 03 May 2009 23:02:03 +0000

Its not cowardly to use standard dishonesty its in fact a very smart thing to do…but only sparingly.

Whatever truths you may hold or lies, they both must each be used sparingly.

Or suffer at your own peril.

By: defly

defly — Sun, 03 May 2009 20:51:30 +0000

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this topic, very interesting and rarely covered.

My current supervisor at work is exactly like the person you mentioned in the post. He talks for houres about nonsense, mostly about music (I know/care a damn about it), gets very emotional during the conversation, sometimes hitting objects, just in order to pick them up 2 seconds later and telling his audience “nah, just kiddin”. He’s 55, divorced for ~30yrs, and works as a social worker.

Seriously, this guy is paid to work with young people and act like a role model, yet he has so little social skills. Almost all his colleagues pretend to be nice and friendly, but in the end, I know that they are annonyed by him; they know him since 20ish years.

I know that you don’t care about this and probably stopped reading like 2 paragraphs ago, but let me express my thoughts about this. Since I will move away in a few months, I’ll have the opportunity to confront him about this. I would love to, but apparently he doesn’t care about self-imrpovement. One day he mentioned that it was “god-given” that he’s not married – Yeah, whatever, you needy afc. . .Since it’s unlikely that he will actually change, being radically honest seems to be like a negative freeroll to me: either he won’t change or he won’t change and will be mad at me.

By: walshy

walshy — Sat, 02 May 2009 09:23:08 +0000

I feel that humans need to lie to each other to get through our lives. Its really hard to tell a friend: “look man, you need to stop arguing/lying/swearing so much” and alot of the time that is needed. I like to make the people around me feel as good as possible and brutal honesty just doesn’t co-exist with that well. Nobody wants to be the bad guy, in truth sometimes not pointing stuff out is doing more damage than the initial sting the truth would induce.

Cheers tynan, I will reflect on this today.