Secrets and Lies

[gagged_Louise]

Sometimes "telling the truth" and being your honest and frank buddy who tells you (their old-friend/child/colleague-and-friend) the open truth can be an excellent way to put other people - you or me - down, under the inassailable cloak of frankness and love of truth. There is a "telling the truth" that's really a shielded way of poking other people in the face, or asserting they shouldn't believe in themselves, in what they do.

"Well, as your best friend I can tell you those shoes/that skirt don't really do you favour", "You know you have to do x and x and x and x before your mom-in-law arrives here? Have you forgotten? Ooh, how bad. Shouldn't you get a better hoover and a place that's easier to clean up? Oh my..." (yes in time I should, but I don't need you to tell me and push it into my mind again and again - and nor do I need to be reminded of that I don't have the cash to look for a new apartment right now, from someone who earns twice as much as I do...)

Telling the truth in this way is a kind of exercise of power, a way to keep other people - friends, relatives, grown-up children - feeling inadequate. And it can be totally invisible to the one who's doing it, or even a mutual activity, but in the end it gets grinding on any relation.