Of truths, love and friendships

What do you do when you think your friend is hitting a brick wall and going up a road of self destruction?

Do you tell them what you honestly think? Or do you give them moral support? Or do you pretend that you don’t see the inevitable and try to see the positive side of things?

Why do people often get punished for telling the truth?

Look what happened to David Kelly? He told the truth, they tried to destroy him and he killed himself.

I lost a few friends telling them the truth. Maybe that’s why I stopped. Or at least I try to present my opinion in a sugar coated casing.

For example T. Well I was young then. Just hit my early 20s. I didn’t even know myself let alone have real opinion about anything. We went to meet a friend who was about to get engaged. She was marrying her high school sweetheart. The rest of us haven’t figured out what we wanted out of life yet and she was already tying the knot. On the way back, T asked me, was there something wrong with the way she looked? Somehow when our peers get married, the rest of us left on the shelf starts examining ourselves closer. Someone should have told this to me then, when someone else ask you how they look ALWAYS give a nice positive answer. I didn’t know. I told my honest opinion and she just basically ended the friendship right there on the spot.

Shot for telling the truth.

Then there was S. She was having an infatuation with her boss. He was married with kids. She was single, available and looking. This one really stumped me. S had always had lots of boy friends and admirers. Had a few marriage proposals too. Had men who were willing to give it all to her. But she was set on her mind. She has to have this married one. I told her, you better be careful because this might go into something deeper than you thought. No. She brushed me aside. This is nothing. They got married, I was told like a week or two before she was eloping. S asked me if I would come and witness the solemnisation ceremony. I was in Hong Kong. The ceremony was to be in Australia. She had already made up her mind. I didn’t have the money for the airfare. How do I justify not flying back to visit my mum but yet being able to fly to Australia in a moment’s notice?

S had a reception at a later time. I wasn’t invited until the last minute. Someone else had told me about the reception. She got the invite much much earlier. Of course I was hurt! I even called her to ask indirectly if I was to be invited. She denied it, and send me an email invite later. What am I supposed to think?

Never point out the truth to a person in love. They shun you for it.

Now a friend has gone on a trip to visit a man in a faraway land. Since over the years I have learnt NEVER to tell the truth when someone is in love, I kept quiet.


But someone else alluded the truth to her. Is it so wrong that we are concerned for a dear friend of ours? As much as we want her to be happy we are also aware that she could be taken for a ride, to be taken advantage of by an unscrupulous man? Granted we don’t know him and haven’t met him personally. But he can’t even make the effort to come and meet her on her home soil. She is using her own hard earned money to visit him and buying him gifts and possibly for him to take advantage of her. The truthteller got shot of course.

What is it about people in love that they don’t want to hear the truth? They just see the world through those rose tinted lenses.

Love makes people do the silliest and the most unimaginable things. The rest of the world must just shut up and observe.

Good friends should just stand by to collect the broken pieces should the heart gets broken minus the “I told you so.”

Its hard but no one really wants to hear the truth. Its too real. Especially when they are in love.

What else can we do?