Honesty isn't any policy at all; it's a state of mind or else it isn't honesty...

It has been drummed into me that honesty is the best policy and that an honest person is a favorite of the Gods and being honest ives you immediate access to paradise.
It also is a quality I like and admire in people. But have you noticed that people who are very honest and up front most often than naught do not seem to be able to keep and sustain relationships.

Some relationships that are bound by societal norms and are hard to break survive the "what you see is what you get" partners and tolerate it and some how learn to live with it.

Freindship isn't though and I find that amazingly complicated. After all this is the
one relationship where there is no pretence or guile and should not be, this should be a place of supreme confidence in the self as well as in the other.

But I guess our capacity to take the truth and honesty from the other is a unique and individual thing. Maybe the truth which can be very harsh at times should not be expressed without thought and we should stop feeling so holier-than-thou just 'cos we think we have done the absolute right thing by speaking the truth. Diplomatic and discerning skills should be applied in all relationships.

Am I advocating dishonesty then? My children will be the first ones to slap me... after all these years that I have been drumming into their heads about honesty and its virtues.
"Do not mistake freindship for a license to tell the truth. More pain has been inflicted by indiscriminate truth telling than by lies. Honesty too often means being hurtful and wounding someone. As long as you keep true counsel with yourself, it doesn't hurt if you dissemble with a freind." - David Brown

A lie, it isn't and should not be... the truth... before it marches on, needs to be checked, weighed, evaluated... If in your heart you are aware that what you say is hurtful... then maybe it shouldn't be said.
There are after all very many methods of conveying a thought with finesse and tact.... like when Alder tells me, 'You're not fat... you're almost the same size as Adele'.