Honesty Is The Best Policy...Conditionally Speaking

I'm a little tipsy, so I'm hoping this is not incoherent. I talk a lot about relationships and probably always will. I've had good one's, mediocre one's, fucked one's, one's I didn't quite get. But this entry is about the witness of one. Never in anything I write will I ever mention names. I might throw in a pseudo here and there, but for the most part he, him, her, she is the standard.

Recently I had a conversation with a very close friend of mine. It's a situation she is going through with her significant other. The bottom line of the conversation was about honesty which I'm drawing near to the meat of the weighty matter-shortly. The landscape...we've been friends since we were somewhere around 18/19 years old and in the 12 going on 13 years I have known her, I've only known her to be in love once. Before now. I won't go into too many personal details because I would hate for her to think I'm using a public forum to put her on front street. I digress. For the first time, much to my hearts delight, she has found herself in love for the second time in almost 13 years. I love love and maybe that's my problem, but the truth remains. I encourage any of my friends and even people I don't know for that matter to totally indulge in love. Head first at all costs. You learn a lot when you're drowning and only you can save yourself. Damn margarita's got me off track! Ok, so honesty and relationships. When does the honesty deal breaker go into effect? And are there levels of honesty that are considered acceptable?

My aforementioned friend found herself between the hard and honesty rock place this week. We have all been there and will again. It's inevitable. Tell this white lie (whatever the hell that is), say nothing, or straight dirty lie it out? I've heard it said that part of the truth is a whole lie. I disagree-to a degree. What my friend shared with her man was, in my world a definite full disclosure and I totally think she did the right thing. But here's the crux. She didn't get the response she expected and was devastated for a bit. Everything worked out in the end, but my inital point still stands. So, honesty is not ALWAYS the best policy based on the outcome you get as a result of your honest self. And do you know why? Because ever since you were a child, when your mother told you "honesty is the best policy" in a way, that stuck with you and for that reason, you also believed that honesty equated to absolution-even though Mama left that part out. But in your mind, why the hell else would that not be good advice if the next logical step was not automatic forgiveness? Just like I used to HATE when my mother would make me and my sister spend Saturday morning cleaning the house-it stuck with me. For no reason and nor was I given one for why that was a requirement. But at 30 and ever since I was on my own, what do you think I do on Saturday mornings? Clean the fucking house! Even when I don't want to. It's just in me. Don't get me wrong. I would say more than 95% of the time I am TOTALLY honest in relationships. But there is a difference, to me, between deal breaker lie's and those, if disclosed, would create more problems than necessary. It's situational at best. There is a significant line between "honey I fucked your best friend" honesty and "your mother's a haggard bitch" honesty. Which is less relationship devastating? And no, I'm not implying that not being honest about the best friend scenario is the way to go, as some of you in between the line readers would probably glean from that question-that's on you.

I don't actually have the answers to the questions I pose most of the time because I'm human and anything I write about I have also experienced. And because that's a past tense statement, clearly, on an occasion or two perhaps, I chose what was behind door number 2. I'm no guru. This is just thought provoking drunk typing.

~A~