I had a disturbing experience where I was discussing an emotional subject with a close friend. I thought my friend was likely to be sensitive about the topic, and I thought it would be painful for her if I stated how I felt honestly (and the discussion was partly about how I felt). So my reaction was to warp my words and shift my reasoning, attempting to transform my thoughts and feelings into a more palatable form. This is something a lot of people do all the time, and to some extent its a good thing, making social interactions easier.

But here's the icky part. As I got into this alternate reality, I actually felt my opinions changing to reflect the things I was saying. I watched my beliefs revise themselves to match my words, words chosen based not on truth but on how they would be received. Even though I was fully aware of this process as it happened, it wasn't until sometime the next day that I was able to, by careful reflection and re-evaluation, get my opinion, my intuition about how I felt, back to its previous position. And in this case, it was definitely not that I was coming up with convincing new arguments when trying to play devil's advocate. The old arguments were my honest evaluation and the new ones were not.

How often, I wondered, does this insidious revision process happen unconsciously in our daily lives with their daily lies? Is it possible to adjust your communication based on others feelings, agree with someone sympathetically, sound like you are sympathetic, and not be modifying your own beliefs? Is one thing that makes someone sensitive an ability to constantly change their mind based on what those around them want to hear? I have noticed that being sympathetic seems to correlate with this ability. If you can see things easily from your friends' point of view, becoming a part of their subjective reality, then you can better feel their pain.

On the other hand, are those who have trouble steeping themselves in others' reality doomed to constantly misunderstand them? Are their relationships shallower because they lack the emotional connection of sharing a perspective? Is it harder for them to overcome their biases because of their constant frame of reference? Are they arrogant or self-centered, and if so are these bad?

I'm not arguing here for being totally oblivious to other people's needs and feelings. I think there are more intellectually honest ways of being sensitive than pretending opinions which one doesn't have. Something I usually try to do is to let my sensitivity dictate when I state my opinion, rather than changing what I say, which I think is a good way of balancing the two. An honest person does not say what they do not think, a sensitive person does not say what will be hurtful and pointless to hear, thus an honest & sensitive person is one who knows when to keep their mouth shut. But sometimes it seems that these considerations are incompatible.

While its fine to bite my tongue occasionally and/or with people I don't feel close to, it really bothers me to do this with my closest friends. [ObBadJournalMetaphor] The unstated disagreements pile up like half-eaten pizzas, molding in the corners of my mind [ hee, that was fun]. And the pressure of having to monitor and choose my words is the opposite of what I look for from a close relationship: freedom of expression, tolerance of idiosyncracies, exchange of heartfelt thoughts, whether positive or negative, rather than filtered ones.

There are so many benefits to this honest kind of relationship. You don't have to worry if your friends are thinking or saying things about you behind your back if you know they'll say them to your face. You don't have your biases constantly confirmed because people won't disagree with things that are important to you. You know that if your friends stick around, its because they like who you really are, not just the parts you let them see. As well as reinforcing self-esteem, acceptance of oneself, flaws and all, these friendships very strongly select for that quality. It is acceptance of and love for yourself, and knowledge that your friends truly value you, that most enables you to be indifferent or even approving of their criticism and disagreement.

Unfortunately I had a recent close relationship where, in my usual much-too-optimistic-about-people-I-like manner, I mentally downplayed the degree and importance of a friends sensitivity to criticism from those she respects. While I like her a lot and think she's neat, as with anyone, she has qualities that bother me and sometimes does things or sees things in ways I find disturbing. So I bottled for awhile, and when I started doing so less, she was hurt and angry and we experienced relationship meltdown (and this despite the fact that there were still many negative opinions that I did not express, which augurs poorly for there being any possibility for an honest friendship). [Note that there was a complicated set of factors that contributed to the meltdown, I'm focusing on this one because I think its a separable topic that makes for a good journal entry].

This reinforced my belief that people who are easily bothered or hurt by my words or views are not people I want to get close to. And makes me more determined to be honest from the start next time, so these things don't come as a surprise.

And to somewhat contradict myself, despite my strong urges towards honesty, I have strong feelings against lashing out as well, including lashing out with the truth. It seems weak to act in haste and anger, and wrong to hurt a friend because of that weakness, failure to recognize or suppress that instinct in oneself. My friend said some harsh things about what she thought of me, and while there are some similarly harsh things I think about her, I did not say them because it felt wrong to do so.

They are things about parts of her, and she would take them as statements about the whole. They are areas to ponder, improve, or accept, and she would take them as things to obsess over or batter herself down with, more reasons why I don't like or value her, or she shouldn't like or value herself. Yet that silence leaves her not knowing all of what I think, a doubt which her demons can wield against her, souring her self-worth in ways perhaps as damaging as anything I could say. If I think her self-worth as a sum is too low, but of specific areas (or in other dimensions or aspects) is too high, how can I express the latter without increasing the disempowerment of the former?

Back and forth across the fractal line I weave, sometimes trying to walk it, sometimes just trying to keep it in sight, sometimes drifting far away in the direction of honesty because the constant effort of paying attention is too draining. I must not deny its existence or isolate myself from humanity by refusing to travel across it. Yet I do not believe I can be truly, deeply, effortlessly comfortable with those not from my realm, or if I attempt to live elsewhere.

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