Today, I want to be honest

I am an honest person, I am but I am good at both distorting the truth either by omission or by intentionally giving the spin I want and when I do lie, I am frightfully good at it (or at least so I think). I recently read A.J. Jacobs' The Year of Living Biblically and he discusses the radical honest movement which is exactly it sounds like: telling the bald truth. (For a good profile from Jacobs himself, see his article in Esquire).

I can see the benefits of being fully or truly or completely honest but I can also see the obvious shortcomings, most immediatly evidently in my relationship with my girlfriend. If I told her, bluntly but truthfully, 'I think you are acting like a child' she'd probably kick my butt. Perhaps what we need for real (or honest...) honesty is not just people willing to tell the truth but people willing to hear it. (And to be honest that last bit was not just a 'honey, don't kill me' but a real, or as real as I'm getting today, insight).

Update: I just finished the Jacobs Esquire article (it was late last night when I was writing my post so I stopped after a couple of pages) and I changed my mind. Radical honesty is not the way to go, honesty is good but radical honesty means saying things like 'it's dead' to a small child whose bug friend is 'napping' according to her. I actually agree with this one, 'dead' is not a dirty word. However, saying to your 27 year-old nanny "if my wife left me, I would ask you out on a date, because I think you are stunning." Aside from being odd and probably making your nanny (or if you told your wife, her too) uncomfortable or worse. So, in brief, I'm all for honesty but not for radical honesty. Perhaps I'll get my act together and propose a full alternative.