To Be Honest With You

I’ve been hearing and reading a lot about honesty lately. But all my life I’ve heard these phrases, often and on a regular basis:

“To be honest…”

“If I’m being honest…”

“Honestly…”

Why do we add these phrases to our speech? Can’t we count on everyone being honest, all the time, without these qualifiers/fillers?

No, I guess not. But why? Does everyone lie?

Salespeople use this device quite a bit, and it’s mind boggling. A salesman once said ‘to be honest’ to me several times over five minutes. It made him sound untrustworthy. No sale.

I even hear this on the news. A man and a woman were having a discussion about an issue of the day. The woman kept saying, “To be honest with you…” When I notice someone using the same stock phrase over and over, I stop listening to what they say and start counting the use of the phrase.

She said it four times.

Honesty is a quality prized by many women, if dating apps are an indication. Many profiles stress it. “The most important thing to me is honesty.” Back when I was on those apps, I read many variations of that sentiment. Be honest, they said, or else swipe left. Point taken.

I listened to what they said. But then I watched what they actually did.

One woman, who matched with me on Bumble, said she lived on Cape Cod. That’s a long way from here. But down in the lower part of her profile, it said “Lives in Canton, Mass.” Canton is over an hour from the Cape.

I asked her about this – here was her puzzling answer.

“Don’t judge a book by its cover.” (Is that what I was doing? I thought I was asking a question.) “I’m selling my place on the Cape. I’m thinking of moving to either Portsmouth NH or Asheville NC. I’m selling. So I picked a place between Cape Cod and New Hampshire.”

I was still mulling over this a few days later when I noticed she had ‘pulled up stakes’ again. Now her profile said “Lives in Asheville NC.” She made this change from her home on the Cape.

Goodbye, Nancy.

So, I don’t get it. I guess the answer for me is to be honest, without constantly telling people that I am honest. When I find a woman with the same philosophy, that’s a real match.

By the way, I wasn’t totally honest before. I gave the impression that I was no longer on the dating apps. I am, at least for now.

Honestly, I lied.