The Art of Conversation - Catherine Blyth [58]
What is worse, CYBI is so busy imposing reactions, she never learns what truly rocks our world.
Tactics: CYBI means well, and we’ve all been in situations where our excitement gets lost in translation. If it so happens that not only would you believe it, but you’ve a better story, take the floor (and give everybody some respite): say, “Yes, reminds me of when . . .”
Pluses: If you start issuing Wow!-prompts, this is your subconscious hinting that an encounter is on the slide. Seek more creative means of support, or get out of there.
9
HOW TO TELL A LIE On the Detection of Untruths
It suits us to believe that liars are punished and their schemes backfire, but this is self-deception. There is a reason witnesses in courts of law tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but, so help them God. If we went about our business voicing our every suspicion, lust, and grievance, we too would need a divine body-guard. Imagine:
“You as daft as you look?”
“My elbow has more personality.”
“Your brat stinks.”
➺ Rule one: Trimming the truth is a social skill
Our species’ success comes of sociability, serving four social goals—collaborative, convivial, competitive, and conflictive—none of which correlate with truth unmodified. While getting along means being trustworthy, could we gain one another’s trust if we were totally honest?
Take the dilemma of vet Yoav Alony-Gilboa, eating rabbit at a “posh restaurant”:
Halfway through I hit a bone and thought to myself, “This is not right.” I checked another bone that, for a rabbit, shouldn’t be there, and it was. I realized we were eating a cat, beautifully seasoned, tender and moist.... I didn’t complain, however, as it would have been too embarrassing for my hosts.
Sociability requires self-sacrifice, and kindness, self-censorship. Skipping awkward bits, sparing feelings, saving face: These are the lies that bind, invisible stitches of untruth, as we tailor conversation to our audience, but so intrinsic to the process that we scarcely notice doing it. Ideally.
But although lying is innate, found in gorillas and human toddlers, and deception well documented in grouchy infants who find instant succor in their parents’ arms, tact is something only socializing can teach.
Worryingly, saving lies are falling from fashion. Confession is a flimsy alternative to a fully paid-up conscience, yet the often invasive mantra of “sharing” is little challenged. The soap operatics of self-revelation are free to all in the access-all-areas info swamp that is the Internet, with scanty particulars on full display. And the “home truth,” seldom less than self-serving—a warrant to bully or pass problems on, breaches of social trust in the name of honesty—passes for virtue.
An unsuspecting friend received a call from a recovering addict, an acquaintance long out of her life, who outlined the vintage sexual fantasies in which she had starred back at school—a violation prescribed by his therapist! Is this the road to responsibility?
➺ Rule two: Directness is a privilege of intimacy
A representative defense of directness comes from singer Mutya Buena:
“People say, ‘You’re so pretty but you’re so rude; you shouldn’t be talking the way you’re talking.’ Excuse me? [Imagine extravagant hand gestures here.] I can’t help the way I am. I’ve grown up with four older brothers so I’ve learnt not to take any nonsense. . . . People seem to be intimidated by me, even small children.” She laughs. “I think that people took my bitchiness for being horrible, rather than just being me.”
Being herself means being bitchy but not being horrible? Such contorted thinking from such a bright woman shows how easily we think well of ourselves, and how much is lost if we forget directness is a right we earn. Only a friend can say you look vile as a favor.
HONEST DELUSIONS
Is directness honest?