love out loud: honesty, the okay policy
Honesty. It’s what we’re told is the best policy when we’re small and unable to make independent and informed judgments. Then you get older and learn that lying often gets you out of trouble. But more importantly, it often also prevents you from hurting people you care about.
Several weeks after I started seeing Dracula, he told me he wanted us to spend the weekend apart so we could think about things between us and make some decisions. I mostly felt like he was making my life unnecessarily complicated, though I was secretly pleased that someone else was acting like a neurotic freak for a change.
So I went about my life; I went to a gig and had some pizza on Saturday night, and probably went to my parents’ place for dinner on Sunday night. Despite the instruction to think about things, I didn’t, because I didn’t know what had prompted all the drama.
That Tuesday, I met up with Dracula at uni. He said he had to tell me something and that then I would have to decide whether I wanted to keep seeing him or not. So I bought us a round of drinks and we sat down.
After the longest preamble I’d ever heard, he finally told me what was going on. Apparently we had different ideas of what ‘thinking about us’ meant. For me, it meant ‘thinking about us’. For him, it meant ‘flying to Queensland to get randy with my ex-girlfriend’.
I was barely two sips into my drink when I stormed out and told him not to call me. I was furious (for me to walk away from perfectly good wine, I’d have to be).
But that’s not the point.
The point is that it wasn’t in his interests to tell me. I yelled at him a lot and he suffered a great deal of mockery from mutual friends. But I’m not altogether sure it was in my interests either. True, the fact that he was still hung up on his ex was something I needed to know, but I wasn’t convinced that hearing about his romantic weekend getaway was a good thing.
Everyone who would find out would tell me, ‘at least he was honest’, but that really didn’t make me feel any better. Conversely, I didn’t wish that he’d kept it from me either; what I wanted was for him to build a time machine and go back and not do it.
These are the kinds of grey areas that everyone thinks aren’t really grey areas. The hurt wasn’t particularly long-lasting, but I don’t think that knowing what happened has benefited me any more than his simply saying, ‘I’ve realised I’m not over my ex, we should stop seeing each other’ would have. But unfortunately it’s often not left up to us what we do and don’t know about, and we don’t have targeted memory erasure procedures in real life to filter out the things that hurt us.
So in closing: what did I learn from all this?
If anyone ever says, ‘I need to talk to you’, make sure they’re paying for the drinks.
(Image credits: 1.)
but he wasn’t honest! honesty would have been telling you where he was going beforehand.
what he did was a kind of please-forgive-me-self-flagellation to make up for the fact that he hadn’t told you earlier.
and honesty doesn’t have to mean full disclosure. ‘i’m not over my ex’ would have been equally honest, without the drama.
what a twit.
i agree about the drinks : )
Honesty is always the best policy. I think more importantly lieing to not hurt some one is more selfish then actually causing the hurt. It appears the lesson is more that you did not investigate basic facts before jumping into bed with some one
Honesty is most definitely the best policy-
Its always nice to think the truth has not benefited you or that the knowledge is of no aid to yourself but there is absolutely nothing worse then a lie to protect your feelings. Personally that is more degrading then the knowledge gained itself.
The concept of a time machine and erasing actions seems a little narrow minded, as the reality is despite what you felt his feelings may not have been the same as yours and whether you wanted the insight it sounds like he was quite honest. Maybe seeing his ex is what he needed to work out if he really had feelings for you
Despite the fact you have previously written about a three date policy before getting into bed with some one it sounds as though you did not do enough investigating before jumping in with this one.
Hi Onika,
Thanks for your comment, I really do appreciate hearing different perspectives, but you’ll find if you re-read the columns that mention this gentleman, that nowhere is the act of jumping into bed with him mentioned. Uninformed inferences do not an argument make.
Nonetheless, in the spirit of the holiday season, I would like to simply wish you the best for 2011. I do hope that no person you are ever with feels the need to ‘see’ their ex in order to work out if they really have feelings for you.
Oh apologies luv splendid festive season ur self.my mother always said if u ASSUME IT MAKES A ASS OUT OF U AND ME. I do admit there was alot of assumption in my words but it came from your expression of thought x
Always is a strong word. I don’t think honesty is always the best policy. For instance, when someone is too tired to come to a party of mine that they said they were coming too, I’d rather they tell me their mother is dying in Canada and they are leaving for the airport in an hour on an emergency flight and they’ll see me in a couple weeks’ time. Much better than I just can’t be fucked to honour my commitment to you.
Though on the guy front, telling me that a casual fling is exactly what they are after rather than telling me how they are going to keep in touch with me forever because I’m so special and then I never hear from them again… In that situation honesty definitely preferable.
But in this case, the fact the guy bothered to talk to you rather than just fell off the face of the earth: count yourself lucky. You got treated well.
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