It’s the lie.
I have quite a lot of experience here, and I’m not proud of it. Being a diplomatically-wired person, I am loath to make anyone feel in any way . . . uncomfortable. Honesty, tempered, is the best policy. Emphasis on tempered.
The new, fashionable thing is “personal truth”, i.e.: living one’s truth. Well, but what if one’s truth is I don’t want to leave your place because you’ve got loads of scotch and I’m really lonely and need friends and your truth is we just bought lobster and champagne to celebrate our one month anniversary and we’ve been polite for four hours ?
What to do? Fake it? Spare the guest/friend/acquaintance? Don’t hurt feelings, because that’s awful and you don’t want to be responsible for someone’s pain? That’s always been my go-to. But at what cost? You lose the thing you wanted to enjoy, and give the key of your emotions to another person or persons if you keep it up. You become Not You.
This series is my admitting that. I won’t go into it yet. But I will. Eventually. Sincerely.
Very good depiction of a common dilemma. But, having been in Gordo’s position many times I have a different spin on this scenario. Should we invite someone to a place or activity we know or should know they abhor? This is similar to my wife asking me to watch a movie on the Lifetime channel. I want to reply, “only if I first get a lobotomy and buy some popcorn “. However politenesses dictates a gentle “no thanks”. The question is whether her invitation and the invitation to “bead” were not provocative.