Sincerism

[jadine]

I believe in total, absolute openness and honesty in relationships.  I wish this could be applied more broadly, but societal conventions label very direct communication as "rude".  Instead, we're expected to dance around every interaction, watching for subtle cues that may mean very different things to the different people involved, and guessing at

Comments

[soong]

My good friends are the ones I'm least filtered around, who I'm most comfortable with knowing who I am and around them I say and do things as I 'really' am.

Someone said 'brutal honesty' but how about 'compassionate honesty'? Maybe I care about you too much to hide things from you.

The dialogue in the comic could be saved. Is he a jerk for saying "atrocious"? Would "I'd probably fuck you, but I don't like your face or how you smell." be just as honest but not have mean connotations? Could she say, "I think you're a jerk but I'm in the mood for a lay too, so let's go" ? And on the bill, "I don't feel like paying" is a reasonable statement, a true feeling no doubt, that can be reasonably countered with "I think we should both pay for our own parts."

[jadine]

I agree, I think you're making a good distinction between "direct" and "brutal" here.

[freeimprov]

I'm not sure it would be PRODUCTIVE. As you've said, there's a difference between honesty and stream-of-consciousness. There's also a difference between deception and mere omission, just not saying something even when it's there. And there's omission's evil twin, saying things BECAUSE they're obnoxious (even when they're true

[flwyd]

Small talk and skirting around the issue for politeness add a lot of noise to the communication, too. I think jadine is talking about direct communication vs. indirect communication, not oversharing vs. polite silence. The guy in the comic is clearly stating how he feels about the relevant situation, but isn't providing a stream of consciousness about how there's a piece of bread stuck in his teeth, the last girl he met who smelled like that, what he needs to pick up at the grocery store tomorrow...

The goal of direct communication is to communicate as clearly as possible. This is often efficient, though facial expressions, body language, and other subtle cues can be lower-bandwidth than explicit communication. Unfortunately, some of us don't grok the protocol very well.

[tylik]

"I believe in total, absolute openness and honesty in relationships."

Could you provide a little more context for this statement? Is this a new development? What subset of relationships does this apply to?

In my experience, while you have clearly valued honesty and openness in some contexts (in particular, I think, dealing with those you considered to be your intimates at that time) you have had a pretty high tolerance for holding a lot of information closely, seemingly based mostly on what you wanted people to know. Including with people who had reason to expect otherwise. We had, I believe, discussed this at some length. I'm rather surprised to see this assertion.

[jadine]

It has to be something all parties agree to and participate in. There's good reason why your experience is different, and not just because I was 24 when we dated. I'm sure we did discuss this at some length - several years ago, and not in an optimal context.

If you'd like to talk about this further now, why don't you email me? I don't think we need to discuss what went wrong in our relationship on a public LJ post.

[tylik]

While that might be an interesting discussion to have, I wasn't really thinking of interactions between us. As far as I know, you were generally quite honest with me. Though I guess dating, and our later friendship did give me some perspective on your interactions with other people.

Your statement: "I believe in total, absolute openness and honesty in relationships." is really broad. I wonder particularly what subset of relationships you mean this to apply to. (I mean, arguably you have a relationship with the phone company. However.) And I guess, also, how the entry and exit conditions are defined and communicated.

[jadine]

I meant "relationships" in the romantic sense, per popular usage, rather than interpersonal relationships in general.

I was very honest with you, but given that the last two people I'd dated at that time had both cheated on me (one of them extensively, as you know), I wasn't exactly being open with them anymore, and was a little more wary in general.

[gement]

I have approximately a 98% honesty policy with my near and dear. It works like this

[katybeth]

Well said.

[gement]

Corollary observation: People are complicated.

[jadine]

That's great. And as long as your 2% is about "not mentioning it again / right now", as opposed to never mentioning it, that's the same as what I'm talking about.

I'm looking to expand this beyond "near and dear". I'd like to talk to people who are more distant, establish our mutual feelings, and either build closeness or gain valuable feedback, through the kind of open and honest communication that isn't "acceptable" with people you're not already very close to. I'd like to talk to more people and know they mean what they say, and they're not just being "polite".

[jazzfish]

What you're proposing sounds a lot like a space devoted to radical honesty.

I'm fragile enough that I'm not willing to join the space myself, but am definitely interested in hearing about any results!

[jadine]

Yes! Thank you.

I love their description of Radical Honesty. The one problem I have with it is, I think it should be consensual and mutual, rather than something one inflicts on others without warning.

You'll note that the positive, productive exchanges in the article are generally ones where it's mutual.

[freeimprov]

I'd argue that if it's only consensual, then it isn't radical. But that's just semantics.

[jadine]

Probably so. I'm not saying what I want to do is Radical Honesty. I personally think it's better, in that I think most successful social and behavioral changes are not radical. (Radical changes can be productive, but in a different way.)