truths & half-truths

To me, there's no such thing as a half-truth; they’re as good as lies.

For example, it’s like someone in a chat room telling a little girl, “yes, I’m young...” and leaving out, “young at heart.” Or asking A/S/L (age/sex/location) and someone replying, “17/F/Canada…” leaving out, “40 years ago I was 17, which is when I had my sex change in Canada.”

I’ll be honest; I’m pretty anal when it comes to people telling me lies and “half-truths”. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt that what they’re saying is true all the time... so when I find out they’ve lied to me, it makes me feel like I’ve wasted my time fully trusting them. But another problem is that I’m very gullible and I give my trust to everyone until they lose it... please don’t make things difficult by lying.

“White lies.” I don’t like those either. If I ask you how you are and you tell me you’re okay when you face tells me otherwise, how am I supposed to react?
1. This tells me you might be lying.
2. It tells me you either don’t trust me enough to tell me what’s wrong or you just don’t want me to worry about you, which is already too late because I’ll worry about you even more now that you won’t tell me what the problem is.
3. You have one less person who can pray for you and give you support and be there for you.

Also, if I ask you if I look okay in some item of clothing, but in fact, I look like road-kill – tell me please! I’d rather know the truth and I’ll be thankful for your honesty. Oh, which reminds me, for those who can’t handle the truth - suck it up and move on... it’s not worth your time or energy to have negative feelings lingering over what someone said to you that was truthful. In fact, it takes a lot more courage to tell someone the truth than a lie, thus be appreciative of what you hear.

“Over exaggerations” are fine when it’s obvious and unmistakably an over exaggeration. But when done too subtly, it has the potential to seem like a lie. For example, someone is trying to convince you of something and they say, “yeah, everyone feels this way” when in fact, only a few people do – that’s deceptive.

“Above all, my brothers, do not swear—not by heaven or by earth or by anything else. Let your "Yes" be yes, and your "No," no, or you will be condemned.” - James 5:12