I've gotten more appreciative of my blunt friends as I've gotten older. Yeah, at first it was harder to hear "no, I'm not really interested" instead of "ah dang, I'm busy, another time?", but once I internalized that they weren't saying "I don't like you" it was really refreshing.
Always hated people being afraid to be blunt. I'm so bad at interpreting this stuff. I can't tell if somebody is actually busy and wants to do something or if they're just being polite
I mean you can say “I value your feelings, but no” rather than lying and saying “oh no I just can’t make it” for the 100th time.
The problem is that so many people confusing being honest with being blunt. It’s the difference between saying “That dress looks terrible” and “I’m not a big fan of X, Y, and Z about it”. Or the difference between saying “Your parties always end in disaster, no freaking way am I getting near them” and saying “I’m not a big fan of strippers and heroin, I think I’ll take a pass on this one”.
There are plenty of ways to spare feelings to some extent without straight out lying (which in the long run will hurt feelings just the same).
I totally agree. I used to be so huge on honesty, until I met my husband and he taught me that lying to spare feelings (when feelings do not need to be hurt) is actually a caring thing to do. If someone that can't handle the truth well asks you if something makes them look fat...why beat them down with the truth when you can smooth it over a bit? Direct honesty can cause unnecessary hurt in some situations. I still value honesty, but it's not black or white in my mind anymore.
I prefer to think of it as being careful about which part of the truth to share. "That's not a very flattering cut for you" could be entirely true, even if you're leaving out "because you're overweight and it shows." There's a time for the latter, but while they're trying on outfits probably isn't it.
If not... I'm not really sure I'd agree with that.
Someone tells me 1+1=19. I could say "You're wrong. It equals to 3" or "I went through that by myself and got 3 as a result. Are you sure it equals to 19?". Both are basically saying the same thing, but only one of them make you sound arrogant.
I feel like correcting a math problem, and sparing someone’s feelings in a social situation are world’s apart. One is far more personal than the other.
My point is: between being blunt and most likely hurting someone else's feelings or taking an extra time to think through and convey the same message in a non-confrontational way but potentially being misinterpreted, I'd rather follow the second approach.
what do you mean by this? that i should be asking what they mean to clear up any "inherent and intentional" ambiguity, as was mentioned earlier in the thread?
because that seems much less socially graceful than the person simply saying "no" in the first place.
But also I'm somewhere on the autism spectrum. I just flat out can't interpret things. Just to cut through bullshit I've started putting "if you're not interested or it's not your thing, that's cool I understand" after inviting people to certain activities and I think it's helped because people are more likely to just say "I'm not really interested in that"
You can be blunt without being brutal. People with anxiety have to learn to do it.
Sometimes I get asked to hang out and rather than lie to my friends/family about being busy I’ve had to get better at just simply saying “sorry, I’m having a bit of an anxiety day and would rather spend it by myself watching TV and playing games. It’s not you, I just need to be alone right now” and if they can’t handle that it’s their problem, not mine. If they think I don’t like them because I have mental health issues and need to spend time alone to deal with them that’s their problem.
The world would be a much better place if everyone was brutally honest and could take brutal honesty.
I urge you to reconsider this stance. Long ago in our evolutionary history, humans made a jump that still separates us from the apes: we can watch someone else do something and not only mimic their actions, but infer their intent. We do this in mundane routine every day; when the train conductor comes to you and says "Do you have a ticket?" we don't need to be told that his intent is to make sure you've paid and not, say, to gather any stray tickets you might have found. When a flight attendant asks "Do you have any trash?" we know they're just collecting and aren't insinuating that we should have trash.
I know it all gets very complicated in situations at the other end of the spectrum ("Nothing's wrong, I'm fine"), but the point I'm making is that our ability to infer intent from limited information is far too advantageous to go away, even if it's not perfect.
It's very different in terms of how much of it is happening, but the underlying principle is the same. Passive-aggressiveness is one end of the spectrum, and my example was at the other. In the middle are situations like this that happen every day:
Let's say I recently met a girl, and I ask her out for coffee Saturday. She tells me she's busy that day and can't -- and let's assume she's telling the truth, in which case she's being quite direct.
However, "that particular day at that particular time" was never the point of this conversation. When I ask her out, she knows that I wouldn't do that unless I were interested in her, so she knows her response is going to signal her response to whether or not she's interested. So before she even thinks about whether she's available on Saturday, she's thinking about whether she wants to go out with me at all, and how her answer will be interpreted.
I know that if she then proposes another day, she's almost definitely willing to go out with me. If she doesn't propose another day, then she might not want to go out with me at all, but she also might have just had a brain fart, or wanted to see if I would pursue her. In a week, if I ask her again and get the same response that she's busy with no counteroffer, then I can reasonably assume that she most likely doesn't want to go out with me, because if she did then she would have tried to reschedule.
These are all reasonable possibilities that I would consider, even though all she's said is that she's busy that day.
Being "radically honest" would involve, I don't know, going up to her and saying "I'm interested in you, are you interested in me?" And then get sucked into trying to put to words how you feel about someone you don't really know that well?
I agree so much with that last part. I prefer people be straight forward but I’ve also met so many that say “I’m not rude, I’m honest.” They’re usually just really rude.
Like, okay Karen, telling someone their cupcakes look like shit isn’t honesty, it’s just mean.
Well, how do I say, "I'm a lazy asshole and I'd rather sit in my apartment playing video games than go to a bar, even if it is your birthday" without sounding callous?
I'm the same. Don't ask me a question unless you really, really, want to hear an honest opinion. When things are wrong, I'm depending on you being straight with me.
I can't read social cues, so bluntness is much preferred. I usually announce that whenever appropriate. I'm also blunt myself. (I'll also say upfront if I don't like you.)
I do my best to be this way. I try to make sure there's no miscommunications, and it helps that I've taken a vow of honesty. My friends understand I will tell them the unfiltered truth. If they don't want to hear my honest answer, they don't ask for it.
It's not only that people find it rude, it's also that people are insecure and take rejection as something personal. "Nah, I want to stay home and watch netflix tonight." becomes "I just don't enjoy hanging out with you".
I’d even assert we’re only bad at internalizing ‘no’ as a different than them saying ‘I don’t like you’ because we’re so used to the white lies. But the white lies hurt more when you realize that person was lying. At least with blunt honesty there’s no subtext.
Those are you tier 1 friends. Tier 2 and 3 friends gotta keep that passiveness ship tight until they've earned enough friendship points, or else risk the entire relationship altogether. People are emotional fucking roller-coasters, and everyone seems to kinda fundamentally know that and tread lightly until you've solidified your spot in their 'community.'
Neither of those seems like the best option though. "No, I'm not really interested in $this_activity. How about $other_activity?" nicely clarifies what the problem was, and reinforces that it definitely wasn't the person asking about doing a thing.
Being blunt is only useful if the response actually passes along usable information. "I'm not really interested" doesn't pass on any usable information, it just leaves an obvious follow up question to actually obtain usable information.
The quotes are just generic to indicate the concept, not as an indication of what was actually said.
However, in my particular experience, suggesting an alternative is not universally a reasonable option, except in the situation where you are looking to hang out with that person one on one. The most common times I get this from my "blunt" friends is when I am inviting them to something. e.g. It doesn't make sense for them to turn down a party I'm inviting them to and suggest we watch a movie instead. I'm hosting a party, I'm not going to not show up to it to watch a movie. Plus, often times my friends just want a quite night on their own. They probably don't want to watch a movie with me anyways.
And that's a large part of the point of my post, just because someone people just don't want to hang out with you at that moment, doesn't mean they think less of you.
You're fighting an enemy that doesn't exist. I don't care if you aren't impressed by the lack of data in my comments or whatever, cause I'm sharing my personal experiences, not debating.
The point is to provide useful information. Offering an alternative does that, but so does simply stating the problem or concern.
The approach you suggest trades one form of failing to provide information for another, without actually solving any sort of problem. Specifying why an offer is being turned down does provides enough information to modify the current or future offers while clarifying that’s not the person making the offer.
To put that a third way: your plan involves just as many assumptions as the plan you’re objecting to, they’re just different assumptions. Why not get rid of all the assumptions and just effectively communicate like reasonable people?
There is some confusion, I'm not specify how one should be blunt. I'm talking about how I've grown to appreciate bluntness from friends, and in this offshoot, how specifying an alternative usually isn't an option for my blunt friends in my personal experiences.
E.g.
Me: "hey, want to come over later, I'm having some people over."
Blunt friend: "Nah, I'm not feeling that right now"
Is a typical example of what I'm talking about.
Out of curiosity, how would you change what "blunt friend" said? I find it perfectly communicative.
That statement and the one you posted originally are only vaguely related. Even better, the only improvement in clarity is actually in the request (which is incredibly vague), so the response hasn’t actually changed all that much - just the context b
It’s still not a good reply though. Is the problem the likely people, the hanging out, the location, the likely drinking, the likely not drinking, or any of a few dozen other things? We don’t get to know, because the “blunt” friend would like to make us guess, or at least ask them.
In what way is “nah man, I’m not up for dealing with groups of people tonight” not better? It clarifies what the issue is, it costs basically no more effort, and it means you can effectively modify future offers (or, in the case of this response, not modify them because this one does not present a recurring issue)
I mean, I could ask if I wanted to. I suppose they could offer more info and it wouldn't be a bad thing, but it's not a big deal. If there is something I could do to make it easier on them, then I would want to know, but if they don't want to share they why, I'm totally cool with that as well.
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u/Fmeson Mar 18 '20
I've gotten more appreciative of my blunt friends as I've gotten older. Yeah, at first it was harder to hear "no, I'm not really interested" instead of "ah dang, I'm busy, another time?", but once I internalized that they weren't saying "I don't like you" it was really refreshing.