Straight-talking

You will never be a truth-teller and have an easy life. Your friends will never stay friends with you and also enjoy an easy life. Arguably, you will have few friends left if you are a truth-teller and an e-mail user. It doesn't matter how sensitive and thoughtful a person you may be, put the truth in an e-mail and it can be the end of several beautiful relationships in a nanosecond. No amount of :), or o) or whatever other combinations of colons and open brackets you choose to soften the message in cyberspace they will never represent the open-arms of honest friendship, however much you try. So there is evidence to suggest that the old-timers out there who disapprove of e-mail communication as damaging to relationships have got it right. But are we just afraid of truth, preferring palatable nonsense to hard facts?

To say that being an honest person has draw-backs would have to be an understatement like no other. The spectrum of collateral damage it causes ranges from causing slight offence through annihilating an entire system of family relationships to finding yourself murdered by your enemies in cold blood or being fed to lions in a Roman ampitheatre. By far the worst consequence of possessing a 'truth valve' is that friendships of infinite value can almost collapse overnight and are often beyond retrieval.

If you suffer from Straight Talking Disease you will know that however well-managed your condition occasionally you inadvertently eat something which contains truth serum. The result of this is that you start looking like a figure of ridicule in a Shakespeare comedy, running about telling people every innappropriate thought you ever had in your head. Something occurs within you and you are suddenly a vivid adult version of the little boy who tells the Emperor he is naked while everyone else is saying how marvellous his clothes are. Randomly your mouth will open like a trapdoor and horrible stored vignettes will tumble out into the ether. "You really don't suit blue hair, bare scalp would be preferable." "God knows why you wasted your life on that, it would have been less of a waste building model aeroplanes", and so on...

Yes, we have our advantages. There are two sides to every coin. We do, like lambs to the slaughter, martyr ourselves for the sake of all the lightweights out there who don't have the guts to speak out. There are many people considered brave heroines and Saints in retrospect who were simply pains-in-the-arse in real time. Suffragettes often suffered from Straight Talking Disease. Jesus clearly had a bad case of it. I have a severe and terminal infection and nothing will ever save me or anyone else from it. It is, in short, a nightmare. I thought I had it under control, but, and here is the truth, I haven't even come close. The experience of managing the condition is a little like wearing a muzzle on my mouth like those used to quieten a yapping dog. I spend a great deal of time corsetting in all those honest remarks. I wish people knew how hard I work at it, how much worse it could have been. Although sometimes I wonder whether it is this very inhibiting of wayward truths that causes them all to come out in a rush like a guargantuan fart. Those appreciative of them are far fewer than those braced for another fall-out. Countless times I have ruined a beautiful career. When you look at our poor figures from history who didn't mince their words you can see how common an outcome it is for the straight-talker.

There are ways and means of telling truths. Most of them are uncomfortable. Climate change experts who dared to say 'the ice-cap is melting', were viewed as lunatics because we didn't want to hear it. The early re-cycling fanatics were seen as quirky eccentrics. Poor old Charles Darwin is still seen as a bit 'off the wall' by some. There was the poor fellow who said 'hmmmm I think the earth might well be round'. I seem to recall he was ex-communicated, and probably incarcerated or tortured. The now deceased man who spoke the resounding line 'There are no weapons of mass destruction' subsequently took his own life in the telling. With all of these people there is a serious case of Straight Talking Disease and I doubt whether the medium used would have affected the outcome that much. If Darwin had e-mailed a mate and said 'Hi Erasmus Junior, I think we were all once invertebrate lizards, LOL Charlie :)'...he would have been taken no more or less seriously than he was when proving it by cataloguing every species of invertebrate creature in the globe. The Suffragettes would have done themselves few favours using the internet, www.throwyourselfunderhorses.com would have done nothing to increase or decrease their popularity, although perhaps they would have seemed even more ridiculous. Whilst I find the 'e-mails texts and internet use are bad for communication' argument peddled by the older generation a bit insubstantial, sometimes I think they have a point. Although the jury is out on this.

The 'modern communications lead to misunderstandings' brigade may be right. Although 'a truth-told is a truth-told', it may be made more palatable by softening language and cuddly lighting cushioned by wine and song. On the other hand 'you are an ugly bastard and I don't fancy you' is the same in any setting. 'I'm not sure that you are really my cup of tea' said whinsomely over a flickering candle lacks the savagery of a text. Consider this example: 'nt intrstd, L8r Fatchops. u UgLy bstrd lol xxx'. It gets to the heart of the matter doesn't it? Tell me? does it leave any room for doubt? None whatsoever. At least he won't be confused or left hoping. Likewise, at least put in an e-mail the message is short and sweet and you save on the ordeal of sharing a pizza with said turn off. I think modern communications are, like their latter day hand-written counterparts unequivocal clear indications of 'where its at'. The candid e-mail is the new version of a 'Dear John' letter.

Example

a) My Dearest John, it is with utmost pleasure that I write herewith to announce to you my hitherto unspoken loathing of your attire, physiology and general air of invertebrate lizard. I cannot see that there is much to mis-understand my sweet Johnnie when I disclose to you that the invertebrate lizard, no matter how slimey and pert, flicking his tongue this way and that, can charm and woo a lady, the invertebrate is simply not likely to swim in my pond. Please accept this letter with my undeniable joy at being at last free from this undesirable acquaintance.'
NOT yours Lydia

b) E-mail
Hi John, got a bit pissed last night...lets forget about it yeah? Lyd

c)Text
Dnt cll me...

d) Face to Face candlelit dinner
Er...yeah, so, er, shall we have some more wine? Er, yeah, well, why not? Er shall we have some more wine:...

c)Text following dinner the previous evening:
Sht

You see my point?