The other day, I went to have dinner at the Loop with a longtime friend from freshman year, a good-natured but not particularly astute selective living group bum. You know the type-not the most suave or well-dressed, but, more than capable of charming mildly attractive members (albeit only mildly attractive members) of the opposite sex.
We sat outside, and, as we waited for our food, watched the many passersby. Each time I recognized someone, especially someone worth knowing, he would ask, "how do you know so-and-so," in the most surprised tone, as if it were a shock that I should know anyone. I found this reaction rather peculiar.
This went on for a while, until finally one of his living group friends came by to discuss girls and things. My friend mentioned that he was in mass last Sunday and met the cutest girl from a certain sorority named "Amanda." Amanda who, I asked? No sooner could I get the question out of my mouth than did my friend make a snickering grin and mutter, "Facebook!"
It was all I could do to prevent myself from either punching him in the face or coughing up my delicious Loop Burger-for the reason that I inquired after Amanda's surname was not so I could go look her up, but to see if his charming church-girl was the same Amanda with whom I hooked up, last year, after a costume party. And, as it happened, she was.
For the boy whose story I just told, and for others, who, like him, don't stop themselves from blurting out similarly offensive remarks-indeed, who don't know when they are being offensive-I fear this guide will have no use. It can only be of aid to the self-aware. If you consider yourself a reasonably self-aware individual, do, please, read on.
This theory came to me during an intolerably long phone call with my aunt. My aunt gets along with nobody in my family but me. I get along with everyone in my family. I tried to figure out, as the conversation wore on, just why this was, and I realized that it comes down to a difference in honesty. Let me explain.
My aunt is sick, and is very angry that no one seems to care. She believes that the estrangement between her and the family is due to a pattern of child abuse on the part of her father, which somehow caused the rift between her and her siblings.
Whenever my aunt speaks to any of her siblings, she insists on bringing this abuse up. Unfortunately for her, none of her siblings recalls it happening or cares to hear about it. Nevertheless, she presses on and gets them all very angry.
I said to her that what her relationships suffer from is her excessive candor. Upon realizing that her curious conversational strategy of focusing on past family traumas doesn't work, she should, I said, drop it completely.
I, on the other hand, never reveal what I really think. I am the only person in the family who doesn't laugh at her ideas, not because I think they're reasonable but because I value the health of our conversation over my being honest with her at any given moment. This is why I am the only member of the family who gets along with her-because I am willing to be dishonest.
My theory, then, is this. In any relationship or interaction, you must constantly ask yourself the following question: What matters to me more-my honesty with this person or our relationship? If you do not care at all about the person, then you are, of course, free to be as candid as you like.
But if you do care, there are many situations where you should lie or keep your mouth shut. The latter, in particular, is a lost art. I find it very aggravating to hear that my grandfather, whom I greatly admire, had a habit of beating his dog, especially when I know that it isn't true. But if I told my aunt she was delusional, we would cease to be on speaking terms at all.
Similarly, my friend may be shocked, out of ignorance or possibly just plain stupidity, that I know so-and-so. But if he had a mind, he would stop and ask himself what matters to him more-his sharing his surprise with me, or our friendship, which may not be able to withstand his constant expressions of shock that I should know anyone on campus.
In the end, then, friendship, like so much in life, comes down to cost-benefit analysis. Do the benefits of sharing whatever's on your mind outweigh the potential costs? If not, a rational person will be careful with his words. And to those who, like my friend, are not even capable of making this kind of analysis-good luck.
Asher Steinberg is a Trinity junior. His column runs every Thursday.
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