Honesty is the Best Policy, Right?

Honesty is the best policy, right?

You meet someone. You hit it off. First, just a night of a couple drinks. Next, a real date. A good one too. Better than you would have imagined, given your track record. A second, real date is scheduled before the first date concludes. A few nights later, the second date. Schedules don’t align for a week or so, and while trying to schedule that seemingly elusive third date, a response: I’d like to keep hanging out with you, but only as friends, is that okay?

Honesty is the best policy, right?

We’re all adults. We’re all friends. When things don’t go according to plan, we offer up half-hearted but not required explanations. After all, we’re all adults. There’s no hard feelings, and we all move on. More so, we understand each other. There aren’t really any secrets, even if we think there are. After all, we’re all friends, and there’s no hard feelings.

Honesty is the best policy, right?

I had a hard time getting my car back last week. Supposed to be a one day job. They ordered the wrong part. It took an extra day from the manufacturer. The one technician that can do the job had an emergency and had to leave early. I asked to have it done by three on Friday. They hadn’t started on it by 11am. Finished at 5pm. I was already gone. A 3-hour job. My car sat from Monday, 8:15am, until Friday, 9pm.

Honesty is the best policy, right?

I don’t have a lot of drama in my life. I don’t have many overtly serious conversations that carry weight farther than the people in the room. I’ve lived my life, for the most part, and as best as I know how, as honestly as I can. Is there information that I’ve withheld? Sure. Have I told a lie in the last week? You betcha. Does it make my hands sweat to know I have to face the truth and tell people what I feel, to tell someone I care about, what I’m thinking? I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t. But for the majority of my life, that’s just what I believed. If you can’t face the truth, then you deserve what you get. It might make you reconsider some decisions if you know that you’ll never be able to cover it up. I guess I believe that if you tell the truth, that’s forgivable. If you lie to cover it up, the same thing, whatever it is, and get caught, that’s unforgivable. Is that fair? Maybe not. But it sounds right in my head. Or at least it did.

Recently I’ve been on the receiving end of what I believe to be interactions that I would classify as less than honest. And while I’ve nearly unintentionally spent an unreasonable amount of time kneading and plodding over those interactions, eliciting the opinions of others, attempting to draw out the truth in future interactions, I’m not entirely sure, regardless of my previous convictions, that knowing the truth, whether it aligns with my predictions or not, would be satisfying. What happens if I’m right? I get no reward. I just get the truth, which was most likely withheld for a reason. What if I’m wrong? Then I just feel like an asshole. But I hate the fact that I just justified lying.

Honesty is the best policy, right? I don’t know. Maybe.