Beat around the bush

I will not soften what I have to say simply to make it easier to hear. I will not waste time dressing up the truth for people who only want comfort, not honesty. And I will not pretend bad behavior is acceptable just because of who it comes from.

People do not usually object to what is being said. They object to having to hear it at all. If someone does not want to confront the truth about themselves, they will find something else to focus on. The tone becomes the problem. The wording becomes the problem. The timing becomes the problem. Anything except the actual point being made.

I am honest about what I notice, regardless of who I am speaking to. I think before I speak. I do not say things in anger, and I do not speak from resentment. When I address someone's behaviour, it is because I have noticed something specific that needs to be said.

So if I tell you that you lied, that you were manipulative, that you were selfish, that you keep changing the story whenever you are challenged, those are not insults thrown around to hurt you. They are observations. They are conclusions based on what you did.

And if your response is to tell me that I was too harsh, too blunt, too mean, then you are doing exactly what people always do when they do not want to take accountability. You are trying to change the conversation from your behaviour to my delivery.

That is not a rebuttal. That is deflection.

You cannot repeatedly choose to stay around someone whose honesty you claim is so unbearable, then use that same honesty as a weapon whenever it becomes uncomfortable. If I was truly that awful, you would leave. You have not left.

So there are really only two options. Address what was said, or take responsibility for what made it necessary to be said in the first place.

The third option is the one people usually choose: make the honest person into the villain so they never have to confront themselves. That only works on people who are afraid to tell the truth.

I am not one of them.