Showing posts with label pretence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pretence. Show all posts

Friday, December 6, 2013

BENDING THE TRUTH DIPLOMATICALLY


Everyone loves to feel good. Everyone loves to be agreed with.  If you are the kind of person that is always honest, says things straight up without any sugar coating on your words then you are headed for a whole lot of trouble with people.
  Max hated lies. He was a devout Christian and believed in saying the truth at all times. He felt the world should go that way. He was getting ready for a gala, his girlfriend came around. She wore a tight orange dress that did her figure and complexion no good. She looked like a drag queen but he said nothing. She walks up to him and asks,
‘How do I look dear?’
  And he let it rip. He said it as it was. She left his house in tears and they never went for the gala. He was perplexed. If she didn’t want to know the truth why had she bothered to ask?
  Max goes to work and his boss asks him what he thinks about a contract they were going after. He got into trouble. Everyone, the boss inclusive knew that Max had stated the obvious truth to them but they didn’t want it to be said out loud. They preferred it stayed in the recess of their minds.  Max’s friend asks a mutual friend of theirs if he thinks he has lost some weight and the friend says yes, Max’s eyes almost bulge out. This friend hadn’t lost an ounce of weight but had gained a thousand more. He looks around and asks Max if he agrees and Max tells him the truth. He gets angry and refuses to talk to Max, saying Max insulted him by calling him fat. He knew deep down that Max was right. Max kept wondering why people took an offence at everything he said. He was the recipient of people’s angry remarks and silence treatment just for telling them the truth, tired of it, he decides to try a new style.
  Max goes out months later and sees his friend who asks him how he looks and Max knowing that he looked like a lard of butter replies
‘You look fabulous. Have you been working out?’
   His friend preened happily and narrated his steps to perfection with Max. Eureka! It had hit Max. No one wanted to hear the truth especially when it stares them in the face and they are in self denial. So he became an expert in telling people exactly what they wanted to hear and keeping his thoughts to himself. He became the most sought after guy. His friends increased from ten to a thousand.
  Emily saw herself as a straight person. If she was sad, everyone knew it, happy, angry, she showed it no holds barred. If you did something and she didn’t like it she wouldn’t mince words but tell you as she felt it. If she doesn’t like you oh you’d know, pretence wasn’t her thing. You always knew where you were with her .She realised that in a week she had left fifty people she had interacted with that week angry. She didn’t understand why she had to hide her feelings and thoughts. After she got into it with a colleague, a senior colleague calls her to his office and gives her the golden rule,
‘Ass lick and be diplomatic. Act!’
Everyone noticed a change and was pleased. Here’s an example. Emily’s colleague has always tried to undermine Emily before their boss. Emily gets to work in the morning, sees her and smiles outwardly,
‘Hi Treesh! Wow! You look gorgeous today. You need to teach me how to apply makeup the way you do. I love it.’
Her colleague smiles happily. Two things have happened here; Emily has lied and she has made this colleague feel better by thinking she knows something more than she Emily does. Emily turns away from the colleague and her smile fades
‘Die bitch! I hate you! Your makeup looks like that of a village masquerade.’
Emily thinks to herself.  Emily’s bitchy superior that she quarrels with every time, makes a mistake and places it on Emily. Emily knows two things would happen; 1) if she goes to the boss to complain she’d get an enemy for life through her superior and 2) she will get sacked. She goes to this same superior and says,
 ‘Thank you ma, for pointing my error out, I never would have seen it without your help. I promise it will never happen again. I hope you don’t mind taking me under your tutelage. I would consider it an honour to learn from you.’
  Emily has struck gold here. She has saved her ass, made this superior feel good about herself and gained a friend. Oh don’t think Emily wants to be friends. She’d wait for the right moment and the right info to get back at the bitchy superior.
  If there’s one thing Ade had learnt, it was to agree with everything his bosses say. Hey and he moved up the ranks pretty fast. They saw him as their guy. Well, truthfully he wasn’t. He only told them what they wanted to hear to get to where he wanted.  The opportunity presented itself and he sold their secrets and jumped ships to their enemy, a bigger and more lucrative party.
  Haven’t you ever wondered why politicians tell you only what you want to hear to get what they want? Telling you what you want makes you shut up and leave them the hell alone. You even like them for it. Lol! They say politics is a dirty game but it’s a life game. The big mistake you make is to see another one in the same game or rather business with you as a friend because you agree, they compliment you, and you hang out together and all. You then let your guard down and give them info they need, when the time is right, they use that info and you call them dirty. Business is business and friendship is friendship doesn’t only happen in politics. It’s a general life rule; you miss out when you mix the two up by seeing your colleague as a friend and so many more. God help you if their outward speech and inward speech aren’t the same.  It’s like seeing your boss as a friend and getting carried away by it. When it comes to his money that Boss would show you he wasn’t your friend as you thought.
  Even men are experts at telling girls what the girls want to hear to get them to do what they want, sorry if you bought it sucker. You cry in the end, they go. Prostitutes, whether you call them aristos know this too. They give you a good time and make you believe they had one too but believe me you don’t want to hear their inner thoughts. Lol!
  The truth is half the smiles you got today weren’t real, half the compliments were lies and the list goes on. Being able to discern that’s where the battle comes in. Sometimes people tell you what you want for their own purposes, it’s not about you.  When people tell you ‘hiiiiiiii’ in high pitched tones that stretch instead of ‘hi’ you smile inside and wonder why say hi to me at all but they will and do to make themselves feel good and make you like them even if they don’t like you.   It’s called social etiquette.
  Agree even when you don’t agree for peace’s sake. Smile even when you don’t feel like it. Compliment even if you don’t want to. Tell people what they want to hear even if you know it’s a lie and save yourself the agony of an argument or to get what you want. Be diplomatic always!  Personally, I think it’s erroneous to believe people don’t want to hear the truth and keep lying to them. If you want sex and not a relationship, say it. If she’s game you roll. You tired of the relationship, tell him and don’t make him the stupid fool that held on to nothing thinking it’s his fault. If it doesn’t suit her tell her but modulate the way you say it. She’d prefer knowing than going out looking like a tent. You can say the truth in a diplomatic way too and not lie about it because you want the person to like you.  Or what do you think about it all? I leave you with a classic example.
“Smile and wave boys, smile and wave”- The Penguins of Madagascar.