Well, I resent you for not inviting me to your and Jenny’s wedding. I don’t want to go, since it’s in Vermont, but I wanted to be invited.”
“Well, I resent you for not being invited to your wedding.”
“You weren’t invited? Really? I thought I had.”
“Nope.”
“Sorry, man. That was a mistake.”
A breakthrough! We are communicating! Blanton is right. Brian and I crushed some eggshells. We are not stoic, emotionless men. I’m enjoying this. A little bracing honesty can be a mood booster.
The next day, we get a visit from my wife’s dad and step-mom.
“Did you get the birthday gift I sent you?” asks her stepmom.
“Uh-huh,” I say.
She sent me a gift certificate to Saks Fifth Avenue.
“And? Did you like it?”
“Not really. I don’t like gift certificates. It’s like you’re giving me an errand to run.”
“Well, uh . . .”
Once again, I feel the thrill of inappropriate candor. And I feel something else, too. The paradoxical joy of being free from choice. I had no choice but to tell the truth. I didn’t have to rack my brain figuring out how to hedge it, spin it, massage it.
“Just being honest.” I shrug. Nice touch, I decide; helps take the edge off. She’s got thick skin. She’ll be okay. And I’ll tell you this: I’ll never get a damn gift certificate from her again.
I still tell plenty of lies every day, but by the end of the week I’ve slashed the total by at least 40 percent. Still, the giddiness is wearing off. A life of Radical Honesty is filled with a hundred confrontations every day. They’re small, but relentless.
“Yes, I’ll come to your office, but I resent you for making me travel.”
“My boss said I should invite you to this meeting, although it wouldn’t have occurred to me to do so.”
“I have nothing else to say to you. I have run out of conversation.”
My wife tells me a story about switching operating systems on her computer. In the middle, I have to go help our son with something, then I forget to come back.
“Do you want to hear the end of the story or not?” she asks.
“Well . . . is there a payoff?”
“Fuck you.”
It would have been a lot easier to have kept my mouth closed and listened to her. It reminds me of an issue I raised with Blanton: Why make waves? “Ninety percent of the time I love mywife,” I told him. “And ten percent of the time I hate her. Why should I hurt her feelings that ten percent of the time? Why not just wait until that phase passes and I return to the true feeling, which is that I love her?”
Blanton’s response: “Because you’re a manipulative, lying son of a bitch.”
Maybe he’s right. It’s manipulative and patronizing to shut up and listen. But it’s exhausting not to.
One other thing is also becoming apparent: There’s a fine line between Radical Honesty and creepiness. Or actually no line at all. It’s simple logic: Men think about sex every three minutes, as the scientists at
Redbook
remind us. If you speak whatever’s on your mind, you’ll be talking about sex every three minutes.
I have a business breakfast with an editor from Rachael Ray’s magazine. As we’re sitting together, I tell her that I remember what she wore the first time we met—a black shirt that revealed her shoulders in a provocative way. I say that I’d try to sleep with her if I were single. I confess to her that I just attempted (unsuccessfully) to look down her shirt during breakfast.
She smiles. Though I do notice she leans back farther in her seat.
The thing is, the separate cubbyholes of my personality are merging. Usually, there’s a professional self, a home self, a friend self, a with-the-guys self. Now it’s one big improper mess. Either this woman and I have taken a step forward in our relationship, or she’ll never return my calls again.
When I get home, I keep the momentum going. I call a friend to say that I fantasize about his wife. (He says he likes my wife, too, and suggests a
“Well, I resent you for not being invited to your wedding.”
“You weren’t invited? Really? I thought I had.”
“Nope.”
“Sorry, man. That was a mistake.”
A breakthrough! We are communicating! Blanton is right. Brian and I crushed some eggshells. We are not stoic, emotionless men. I’m enjoying this. A little bracing honesty can be a mood booster.
The next day, we get a visit from my wife’s dad and step-mom.
“Did you get the birthday gift I sent you?” asks her stepmom.
“Uh-huh,” I say.
She sent me a gift certificate to Saks Fifth Avenue.
“And? Did you like it?”
“Not really. I don’t like gift certificates. It’s like you’re giving me an errand to run.”
“Well, uh . . .”
Once again, I feel the thrill of inappropriate candor. And I feel something else, too. The paradoxical joy of being free from choice. I had no choice but to tell the truth. I didn’t have to rack my brain figuring out how to hedge it, spin it, massage it.
“Just being honest.” I shrug. Nice touch, I decide; helps take the edge off. She’s got thick skin. She’ll be okay. And I’ll tell you this: I’ll never get a damn gift certificate from her again.
I still tell plenty of lies every day, but by the end of the week I’ve slashed the total by at least 40 percent. Still, the giddiness is wearing off. A life of Radical Honesty is filled with a hundred confrontations every day. They’re small, but relentless.
“Yes, I’ll come to your office, but I resent you for making me travel.”
“My boss said I should invite you to this meeting, although it wouldn’t have occurred to me to do so.”
“I have nothing else to say to you. I have run out of conversation.”
My wife tells me a story about switching operating systems on her computer. In the middle, I have to go help our son with something, then I forget to come back.
“Do you want to hear the end of the story or not?” she asks.
“Well . . . is there a payoff?”
“Fuck you.”
It would have been a lot easier to have kept my mouth closed and listened to her. It reminds me of an issue I raised with Blanton: Why make waves? “Ninety percent of the time I love mywife,” I told him. “And ten percent of the time I hate her. Why should I hurt her feelings that ten percent of the time? Why not just wait until that phase passes and I return to the true feeling, which is that I love her?”
Blanton’s response: “Because you’re a manipulative, lying son of a bitch.”
Maybe he’s right. It’s manipulative and patronizing to shut up and listen. But it’s exhausting not to.
One other thing is also becoming apparent: There’s a fine line between Radical Honesty and creepiness. Or actually no line at all. It’s simple logic: Men think about sex every three minutes, as the scientists at
Redbook
remind us. If you speak whatever’s on your mind, you’ll be talking about sex every three minutes.
I have a business breakfast with an editor from Rachael Ray’s magazine. As we’re sitting together, I tell her that I remember what she wore the first time we met—a black shirt that revealed her shoulders in a provocative way. I say that I’d try to sleep with her if I were single. I confess to her that I just attempted (unsuccessfully) to look down her shirt during breakfast.
She smiles. Though I do notice she leans back farther in her seat.
The thing is, the separate cubbyholes of my personality are merging. Usually, there’s a professional self, a home self, a friend self, a with-the-guys self. Now it’s one big improper mess. Either this woman and I have taken a step forward in our relationship, or she’ll never return my calls again.
When I get home, I keep the momentum going. I call a friend to say that I fantasize about his wife. (He says he likes my wife, too, and suggests a
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