My close friends tell me I am a person with very decided opinions. If a total stranger came to that conclusion, I might not be sure it was a compliment.
But since I like my close friends to have very decided opinions too, I suspect it’s safe to assume their view of me is tantamount to a seal of approval.
Not that all my close friends hold the same opinions, or even ones with which I or indeed we as a group agree upon. In the conversation stakes we pride ourselves on living dangerously.
When we carve out time in our hectic work/family schedules to meet up, it’s no holds barred, loud, riotous and enormous fun. Traditionally, the etiquette of conversation has one major rule.
Never, ever introduce the three taboo topics – taboo that is, if you want to keep your close friends, impress the family office boss (single & multi alike), and avoid global conflict at your favourite watering hole.
You may have crossed swords with them already, sex, politics and religion (in no particular order, you see).
Heaven knows who invented this rule; obviously a person of few words, and even fewer opinions.
Sadly, nowadays, it’s difficult to have a conversation that doesn’t connect with any of these topics, and very few that don’t involve all three.
You could even hazard an opinion that without breaking these old taboos, there would be little left worth discussing.
That does not mean there is a lack of controversial topics out there.
For myself, despite cheerfully risking opinions on most subjects, there is one which causes me to tread very carefully – honesty. Of all the virtues, this is the ultimate one to perhaps acknowledge and hardest to live up to.
I have never found anyone who would refuse to come down firmly on the side
of truth. Nor anyone ready to admit that honesty is the best policy.
But the path of virtue is proverbially rough and the hill to happiness, a tad steep and I have a sneaking feeling that for most of us, truth is rather an elastic commodity, at least in certain social settings.
There is certainly conversational mileage in daring to ask if telling the truth is always a good idea. To put things in context, take the eternal feminine question, “Does my bum look big in this?”
Is there really a man alive who would risk devastating honesty in these circumstances? Probably not, unless the man in question had already booked a one-way ticket to some remote Nepalese monastery and was ready to face a future free of encounter with the opposite sex.
A very dear friend of mine is subject of just such a cautionary tale. Asked for his candid opinion on this deadly topic, and being a man of decided opinion on this topic, he gave it.
The poor fool even went cheerfully to his doom, “Yes, darling, it looks enormous, but I really love it like that” Unfortunately, his personal liking did not figure in the ensuing bust-up.
Fortunately for him, he could only afford two weeks in Nepal and never made it to anything remotely resembling a monastery.
Instead he met a cute Italian, big on Famiglia values whose opinions were even more decided than his own, and who shared his passion for oversized pleasures.
He returned to us unspeakably virtuous, gloriously tanned, and horribly smug.
Thank goodness there’s still a future for investing in good old fashioned envy.
