No, and I'm not in a relationship either, so my advice should probably be ignored.

I'm not saying that I go around lying all the time, I'm just saying that honesty isn't technically all you need to maintain a good relationship, there are a lot of times when lying is a better option.

I went out with a girl who was dead against smoking, she hated it, and hated drugs even more. She was a great person and we got on really well, I didn't deny that I had smoked cannabis, but kept up the pretense that I only smoked it at parties, as opposed to averaging at around 1 joint every couple of hours.

There are various things about yourself you could change to save a relationship, small things, but there are other things you just have to hide.

Once again I must add that I am a complete loser, who should be poked with sticks.

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Dad was flammable

Do you prefer sharp sticks or blunt objects?

::readies pencil and baseball bat::

I see where this is heading. Come on, guys, don't make us endure yet another conversation where Kajun boasts about how cynical he is while everyone else pretends to be sanctimoniously aghast.

Sorry mate, but I think that's just insane. You're talking as if marriage or a close intimate relationship steals a big chunk of your brain. Frankly, in my opinion, if you can't be 100% honest at least 99% of the time with your spouse (and honesty does not preclude tact, of course) then you're in a bad relationship.

Bec and I have a good relationship. It isn't perfect, because neither of us are perfect people, but it's a pretty fucking good marriage. We are not afraid of constructive criticism. In fact, I trust Bec as my number one advisor. If I want somebody's honest opinion on something, Bec is the first person I will ask, and I know that she will tell me straight out what she thinks, good or bad. I like to think that Bec regards me the same way.

In my humble opinion, if a relationship doesn't have honesty and trust, it's a worthless relationship.

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This signature has performed an illegal operation and has been shut down.

Although, someone once said that success of marriage is often measured by the bite marks on your tounge. Sometimes it's better just to hold back a bit.

When Marie is depressed I want to shake her and yell, "SNAP OUT OF IT!!!! You have plenty to be happy about, dammit!" But it's my husbandly job at that point to be quiet and comforting and not say much. I've had to learn to fight the urge to fix it with words or actions.

When it comes to art, Marie actually trusts my honest opinion when she is designing her jewelry. She knows that I have a pretty good eye for color and layout on a page or in a room, and it can be helpful with jewelry. She also knows my biases (I think crystals incorporated into jewelry look like cheap plastic trinkets) and judges them accordingly.

In any case, I don't have much fear of giving her my honest opinion of her art. We are usually on the same wavelength, and 90% of the time I confirm what she was thinking was a problem, anyway.

Sometimes I'll run comic ideas by her with alternative punchlines to see which works better. Though we have an understanding that I will never again show her a comic that features cornholing.

I guess, the point being... you pick your moments. Anyone who is brutally honest all the time is lacking in judgement.

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...Trot and Cap'n Bill were free from anxiety and care. Button-Bright never worried about anything. The Scarecrow, not being able to sleep, looked out of the window and tried to count the stars.

All I have to say is that a relationship based on lies is akin to a house of cards; the slightest tremor will destroy it, and it's no fun to live in either.

And I've decided Dan's traditional "DexX is sleeping" stick will do.

::pokes Kajun with stick::

I want to chime in here.. I know the writer boorite's talking about, and the thing I think is even more amusing is that the man she married was an "Artist" that wasn't at all talented, even to fans of the genre of art he was doing. Plus, she was successful, and he wasn't at all... best he ever could achieve would have been "semi-notorious". I often wondered if the marriage would last--did it?

I like it when people close to me praise my art/work, but I know some people feel like if you can't be honest, you shouldn't say anything. But frankly, I don't think I could date someone whose creative pursuits I couldn't appreciate (on some level).

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When they invent BookFace, I'm -there-.

Cant we just mock Kajun for being a drug addicted , lonely single Scotsman with no chance of forming a relationship outside of the local junkie community?

Please?

Itd make this conversation so much easier.

*Pokes Kajun with a sharp pointy stick*

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"Life Sucks, Then you Die. The bit inbetween isnt very funny either"

[I haven't dated in 13 years]I think honesty is the best policy. And I'm not talking gentle buttered over constructive criticism I don't want to hurt your feelings honesty. I mean BAM here's what I think. If you're in a healthy relationship (sexual or otherwise) with someone who you love, you know that there is no implied meaning in their words. What they say is what they mean, and they say it because they believe it, not because there's an ulterior motive, subconscious or otherwise.

Here's an example of unhealthy conversation between members of my family, bless their dysfunctional hearts:

aunt: "Go ahead and take that pie home if you want it."

mom: "No, that's okay. You keep it."

aunt: "No, we won't eat it."

mom: "I couldn't."

aunt: "Are you sure?"

mom: "Well if you won't eat it."

me: "PIE!"

aunt: "I thought you said you locked the closet?"

mom: "I thought I did! Quick grab the taser!"

etc etc

The point being they don't say what they mean, don't pursue what they want, and the next thing you know, there's an undercurrent of subconscious conversation going on while the conscious conversation is happening.
For instance:

aunt: "Go ahead and take that pie home if you want it." (If I don't offer, she'll think I'm rude.)

mom: "No, that's okay. You keep it." (She's just being polite. I don't want to take it if she wants it.)

aunt: "No, we won't eat it." (That will make her take it.)

mom: "I couldn't." (I think she's still just being nice, but I'm not sure.)

aunt: "Are you sure?" (Here's a way for me to get the pie and not appear rude.)

mom: "Well if you won't eat it." (I guess she really doesn't want it, so I'll take it.)

me: "PIE!" (CLOSET DARK! OBI SCARED!)

aunt: "I thought you said you locked the closet?" (Dumb bitch. No pie for you.)

mom: "I thought I did! Quick grab the taser!" (So I can tase you both, and make love to your husband on top of the pie."

etc etc (ad infinitum)

But if we all said fuck it and told the truth it would be something like this:

aunt: "Want to take some of the pie?"

mom: "Don't you want it?"

aunt: "Ya, but if you want some too, we'll split it."

mom: "Dig it."

me: "I'm gonna kill you bitches and make love to the pie!"

etc. etc. (Why doesn't daddy love me?)

So, directness is the way to go. And it's as easy as...ummm...[/I haven't dated in 13 years]

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I ate a hooker half a bottle of knife.

My turn! My turn!

[keep in mind, of course, that though I have never been in a steady "relationship" -- since I'm not fond of the whole game -- I have maintained 3 very healthy friendships for the last 12 or so years.]

Honesty (brutal or otherwise) vs Dishonesty (brutal or otherwise) truly depends on the individual(s) in question. I have one friend who is very artistic -- and very talented in that arena -- and one friend who wouldn't know art if it bit her on the earlobe.

The artistic friend is always asking for my opinions on her music. I tend to enjoy her music, and if there is a piece (or a segment of a piece) that I don't enjoy, I feel completely free to tell her, knowing that she genuinely wants to know my opinion. I'll even TRY to tell her WHY I like or don't like a piece. (Sometimes it's simply that I don't like it, and there's no reason, and she accepts that too.)

The other friend will ask opinions on things simply to have praise lavished upon her. That's unfair of me to say, I admit, but that's just how it seems to me. I have shared my "honest" opinion with her once. And it resulted in a fight. She didn't seem to understand that (unless otherwise instructed) if you ask the question, you'll get the answer. (This is why I tend not to ask for opinions. I know my "artistic endeavours" are crap, and I don't need anyone else to tell me.) She doesn't ask for my opinion often anymore, because my response when she does now is always the same: "Oh, that's nice."

I think the whole point here is this: If everyone who asked for an opinion TRULY wanted an honest one, there would be fewer discussions of THIS nature. However, sometimes it's better to just bite your tongue and say "Oh, that's nice" in order to spare easily-bruised feelings.

DexX, Bec, and LadyJ seem to fall into the former category of "tell me truly what you think", where some of the other examples here fall into the latter of "tell me it's good and we'll have wild kinky sex later."

There is no single answer. It's a matter of knowing the person (people), and using your best judgement.

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This is not my empire.

I need to do some backtracking here.
Obi, I love you, man!
Amen! They also say it because they don't believe in 'walking on eggshells' around their loved one in fear of offending them by simply expressing their own needs or opinions.

Fuzzyman, ditto!
If I value someone else's opinion enough to ask for it, I hope they will be honest with me (notice I don't say brutally honest) and tell me if they think there is a problem. How else can I correct it?

Kajun...

quote:

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..there are a lot of times when lying is a better option.
I went out with a girl who was dead against smoking, she hated it, and hated drugs even more. She was a great person and we got on really well, I didn't deny that I had smoked cannabis, but kept up the pretense that I only smoked it at parties, as opposed to averaging at around 1 joint every couple of hours.
There are various things about yourself you could change to save a relationship, small things, but there are other things you just have to hide.
Once again I must add that I am a complete loser, who should be poked with sticks.

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Lying is never a better option, at least not if you want the relationship to last. I feel sorry for that girl that she was dating you while you hid who you really are from her, knowing how she felt about smoking & drugs. You were playing her for a fool. Too bad you don't bother working to change anything about yourself and feel you "just have to hide" who you really are and what you believe in.

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“It is only with the heart that one sees rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” - The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1945)

At the risk of sounding like I'm talking to a retarded child who has just produced a sloppy, lopsided, ugly basket in arts and crafts, I have to agree here.
But flickguy is right, some people truly want to hear the truth, and others just want to have wild, kinky sex later.

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“It is only with the heart that one sees rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” - The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1945)

Well I'd say that sex fades. It’s not the core of a relationship. When you can't pay someone to experience what you get, then you've got a real thing going. Sure, it'd be lots of fun to people, but when you step back and that’s all you have, you don’t really care about the other person; you care about what you get in bed. I would think that a true loving relationship comes when you care about the other person to the point where the sex isn't most important.

Not that I have any experience.

quote:

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Well I'd say that sex fades. It’s not the core of a relationship. When you can't pay someone to experience what you get, then you've got a real thing going. Sure, it'd be lots of fun to people, but when you step back and that’s all you have, you don’t really care about the other person; you care about what you get in bed. I would think that a true loving relationship comes when you care about the other person to the point where the sex isn't most important.

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Surely this is the equivalent of Stephen Hawking lecturing us all about long-distance running.

Sorry mate, but I think that's just insane.

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Well, then, I think you're having a manic episode with mood-congruent psychotic features!

Hahahaha! You're talking as if it doesn't. What kind of love is this, that doesn't steal your brain? It sounds very rational. I've never heard of it.

quote:

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Frankly, in my opinion, if you can't be 100% honest at least 99% of the time with your spouse (and honesty does not preclude tact, of course) then you're in a bad relationship.

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Aha. That may be the crux of our nonexistent disagreement. To me, it's not a matter of honesty vs. dishonesty. (Don't confuse me with that fucking loser Kajun.) It's a matter of whether or not I'm in a position to judge a loved one's work at all. The answer is no, as far as I'm concerned. And so say the pros as well.

quote:

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Bec and I have a good relationship. It isn't perfect, because neither of us are perfect people,

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And because deep down you're a lesbian.

....

OK, listen here:

Picasso's last wife, Jacqueline Roque, never expressed any particular fondness for what she called "my husband's drawings."

At parties, Hemingway's wife, Pauline Pfeiffer, would roll her eyes when asked about her husband's "boring stories."

James Joyce's wife, Nora, tried to read the first draft of Ulysses and had to go lie down in a dark room with a wet washcloth on her forehead.

In a legendary meeting, the husbands of Toni Morrison and Alice Walker agreed that both women's novels were "too political." One of them is rumored to have said, "I can't get through them. It's like they have an axe to grind."

Pete Townsend's mother once told the British press, "if he wants to get up on stage and act like an idiot having an epileptic seizure, I can't help it."

When asked about Courtney Love's rock cred, husband Kurt Cobain said, "she's an actress." Then he shot himself.

Kurt Vonnegut's wife turned into a born-again Christian and left him wondering where the woman he'd loved had gone. Maybe her critical remarks would have improved his writing.

And picture yourself as Mondrian's wife. Can't you imagine wishing he would shut the Hell up?

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What others say about boorite!

But seriously folks, you are reasonably sure to alter your opinion of a work based on your opinion of the person who did it. I don't care how fucking enlightened and rational you think you are. It's a psychological principle. I mean look at me. Look at how rational I am. OK, bad example.

Also, I hope that my marriage doesn't depend on a mutual appreciation of each other's creative works. I hope to God not. Different ballgames.

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What others say about boorite!

You said it, not me.

So far.

quote:

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I like it when people close to me praise my art/work,

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Speaking as someone who has recently praised you for your writing, and yet who has said not to comment on a loved one's creative efforts, and yet who considers you a lifelong friend and a real cute chick...

...give me some time here....

er.

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What others say about boorite!

I KNEW I recognized you from somewhere.

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What others say about boorite!

You don't have to be a fully qualified art critic (whatever the fuck [u]that[/u] means) to say "I like it" or "I don't like it" or "It makes me uncomfortable" or "Yecchh! I hate yellow and green together" or whatever...

Nobody is "qualified" to offer an opinion on a creative endeavour, any more than you can be qualified to conceive of one.

...oh, and no, boorite - I don't think my love for my wife makes me biased toward (or against) her when judging her work. It simply makes me more generous in my praise, and gentler with my criticism. Generous, gentle, or otherwise, I'm still honest.

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This signature has performed an illegal operation and has been shut down.

Urm... is it normal for sheltered naive homeschooled fundie-Christian teenage virgins to offer advice on relationships and sex?

(Yeah, I know kvk already pointed this out, but... damn...)

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This signature has performed an illegal operation and has been shut down.

quote:

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...oh, and no, boorite - I don't think my love for my wife makes me biased toward (or against) her when judging her work.

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Why, you green-blooded, inhuman--!

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What others say about boorite!

Stop being so motherfucking illogical, you overacting twit! (If only Spock had said this... just once...)

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This signature has performed an illegal operation and has been shut down.

Well, there's sex, and then there's sex. And then there's sex. It depends on what you're talking about. But if you say "x fades," it's usually true no matter what "x" is. For example, "fundamentalist Christian belief fades." It's true. After about 2 years, most born-agains leave off of Church and go back to whatever debauched shenanigans they were up to before. Try it:

"Beauty fades."

"The couch upholstery fades."

"Malone fades... and scores!"

and so on.

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What others say about boorite!

Stop being so motherfucking illogical, you overacting twit!

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[b]OVERACTING??????????????????????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

????????????????????????????????????

!

.[/b]

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What others say about boorite!

quote:

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Nobody is "qualified" to offer an opinion on a creative endeavour

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Your editor is.

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What others say about boorite!