Why Are People Offended by Honesty?

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Yeah every city has good and bad areas. It's funny how people think the states is drowning in a blood bath when most crimes occur in the inner cities.

I don't mean calling someone "Husky" or "Big boned" instead of fat. Political correctness is ret*d. I mean the right time to say it is when they're okay with it not just saying it out of the blue.

Agreed on all counts. "Do I look fat?" "Yes." should be perfectly acceptable. "You look fat." should not. The difference is that in the first the opinion is solicited and people should not be asking questions for which they do not want the answer, but nor should you be volunteering commentary that is likely to be offensive -- even if entirely true. That said it is sometimes difficult to keep an honest assessment like that in and can take considerable self-discipline to accomplish. I lost 20% of my body weight in a few months a year ago and very much appreciate no longer having that stigma -- one less social challenge to overcome.

Most people don't like honesty, because they expect life to be a bed of roses and they want everything to be sugar coated.

When I rode a bus across the US the travel plave gave me a list of Cities to avoid. These cities included Detroit, Philly, Parts of New York City, St Louis, and Baltimore. These are considered some of the most dangerous cities in the US and people are commonly robbed and violently assualted physically and sexually becuase they walk into a wrong area of town. In Detroit they told me that people have been robbed walking off the bus. I don't know if you should tell a 13 year old that but what he is saying about violance is correct in these cities and as a tourist you are more likely to be attacked not less likely as alot of people are making it out to be.

I agree there too. I also don't like PCness but I use it anyway because I don't want people jumping all over me. I find myself saying "Low intelligence" or "low IQ" or "MR" for "ret*d" because people are too dense to see I mean the medical word not the insult. Can't they tell the difference?

I don't even tell a ret*d joke out in public because I sure don't want a stranger jumping down my throat because they over heard it. I wouldn't even tell an autism joke but I could say back to a stranger "I'm not allowed to make fun of myself?" just so they feel like an ass for getting all offended and mad at me and they'd be so sorry they even said anything.

I think kfisherx has nailed it - it's this diplomacy thing and there's definitely an art to it.

Some good quotes I've seen about it are:
"Diplomacy: The business of handling a porcupine without disturbing the quills."
"A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman's birthday but never remembers her age."
"Diplomacy is to do and say the nastiest thing in the nicest way."

IMHO, honesty only offends those who don't want to hear it.

Nobody else really cares.

13 year old's hear far worse comments than that on a daily basis at school. Or have we all forgotten? I don't see the big yank. Kids are tougher than we give them credit for.

EDIT: Come to think of it, a lot of the shootings the OP was referring to are likely committed by kids his own age and even younger. The world ain't no fair tale place, and never was. Everybody's got to face reality sooner or later. The sooner the better I think. I'm not talking teaching pure paranoia though. Just a little healthy realism. War, death, cruelty and murder happen. It's the truth. And none of those things will go away just because we don't want to talk about them.

Thanks everyone! I think your answers to me are all probably correct. I can't seem to get away from being honest all of the time though (and I guess immature as well).

My mom also got upset with me for telling another of my private junior high school students that I went out drinking with my friends over the weekend. I don't see what's wrong with that. I can remember being 14. Of course older people drink!

But she said I shouldn't have been talking w/her about illegal activities- things illegal for her to do. I've also told students I used to smoke weed as a teen, that I was really tired that day, that I had period cramps...

Yeah, I guess these are not good things to say. But I feel like I'm lying if I'm not totally honest!

I can relate there. I feel so uncomfortable talking to young children because I don't know if I would say anything inappropriate to them and have the mother get mad at me. Even having to dummy down words and leaving out things so they understand and to make it more approppiate is hard to because then it feels like I am BSing or lying. Only things I know that are a no no to kids is sex, death when they are at a young age, and discussing fetishes. Leave it up to their parents. All I can say is "Go ask your parents about it" or "it's something for you to ask youer parents about."

I often feel I am lying or BSing if I don't tell everything. But I tell myself it's not lying if something is personal. Just tell them it's personal. Am I lying if I am too ashamed to admit things or because I am embarrassed about it or because I am afraid I might get judged for it or I feel it's no one's business? Parents don't tell their kids they have sex right but are they lying for not telling them they had it? People don't go telling others they have been raped, are they lying for not sharing it with other people? Are people lying when they don't talk about their abusive childhoods or things they have been through in life that were traumatic or upsetting for them? Are they being dishonest when they do those things? Think of it as this way.

I dont see anything wrong with telling your students that you used to smoke and so.


A few of my teachers did this and we had some sort of lecture about the bad aspects of doing it, I dont think any of my peers where shocked by it or anything and Im pretty sure many of my classmates started realizing that most teachers are normal people as well and they started feeling more related to what they said.

Yes, I feel like I should treat kids the same as anyone else. Why should I dumb things down for them? They are smart enough to take it! Of course you don't discuss hardcore sexual situations with them and etc. You are right! But I remember being 9 and another kid asked me "Do you know who Adolf Hitler was?" I didn't, so went home and asked my mom. She refused to tell me cuz she didn't want those images in my head. Silly! That started a 5 year special interest in The Holocaust.

Why should we shield kids from knowledge that they might want?

I understand what you mean in regards to not discussing personal things. But I don't have a problem with telling ANYONE my personal business. I think that is why I can't stop doing it. I only say these things when asked, not just out of the blue. For example: "How was your weekend?"--> "Oh, I went out drinking with my friends and got a hangover."

I meant more like when a young child asks how are babies made or where do they come from. Then they are going to know how they get inside the mother and then they might want to know how the sperm gets in there and how the man puts it in there. I have no idea how to explain it at their level so they understand and how to avoid the sex topic. I don't want to say the stork does it or god or something that happens on it's own after the man and woman are married and her body decides it's time. The kids will grow up and find out on its own there is more to it than that.

At least you answer that small talk question better than I do. I always answer it as rating it. I only have these answers in my head "Bad" "okay" "good" and "great" and I have to rate my weekend if someone asks. But if someone asked what I did over the weekend, then I go into more detail. I thought that's what they wanted anyway or else they would have asked me what I did over the weekend.

My parents did pretty good being open but they didn't tell us certain things such as sex. They only said it was a grown up thing and we are too young to know what it is and understand. Of course mom said god made us and he put us in her belly and we came out of there.

Oh, I see where you are coming from in that line of questioning. Well, I wouldn't tell any kid that wasn't mine ANYTHING about how babies are made, sex and whatnot. That's for a parent to explain, not me!

If someone asks me how I am or how my weekend was I give a detailed answer! Are you not supposed to do that? Why ask if you don't want the truth?

I do this constantly. It just pours out unless I really force myself to respond with "fine".
These types of questions are often elaborate, encoded versions of "hello". They're just greetings; people usually don't really want to know.
But I do wish they'd just say "hello" instead!

I've had similar experiences, although generally people get a very positive first impression of me and it's not something that happens often, so it gets written off as "oh, he means well, it's okay". My senior year of high school, I was interviewed by the local paper as my high school's "graduate of distinction". One of the questions was about the importance of my SAT score. I answered something along the lines of "It's important because it's a huge basis of what I'm judged on. If I have a bad SAT score, they can't say "oh I know him, he's just a bad test-taker". I know I'm smart, but they don't, and I have to show them." One of my friends laughed about that (not in a mean way, mind you) and said the "I know I'm smart" comment was a very "Patrick-like" thing to say. I'm still not sure why.

It could also be the way that the honesty is delivered. Is it the cutthroat method, or the diplomatic method? Most people favour diplomacy.