ManFAQ Friday: Truth or Dare?

Happy New Year from the ManFAQ! 

It’s Friday, and that means answer time! For those of you who have commented with questions from previous ManFAQs, thank you. I’m adding yours to the list of questions women have asked about men over the years, and I will answer them all in turn – to continue to demystify the more malodorous gender for those of the gentler. Actual questions, posed by real women, and answered by a REAL man. What could go wrong?


Question:   Is honesty the best policy in a relationship?

Answer:   The degree to which honesty the best policy in a relationship is inversely proportional to the length of the relationship.  If you just met him, you should be totally honest with him, and he should be totally honest and open with you.  You can’t base a relationship on lies, half-truths, and slippery evasions.  As my good friend Maureen the Poet told me a hundred years ago, “Men are scum.  Tell you they love you – THEN they come.”  So for beginning a relationship, aim for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but. 

But, once you have a relationship, the game changes.  Is honesty the best policy all the time?  Honestly, no, of course not.  For example, you will sometimes ask his opinion on things that won’t really be in his best interest to answer, and that you don’t really want to know about – and he’ll ask you the same things. 

Trust me that you really don’t want to know if he thinks the new office manager is cute, or his opinion of that new dress.  When he asks what you’re thinking about, it’s nice of you to lie and tell him you were thinking about how amazing he was the other night.  We know you’re really thinking about the bills, or how to get around a coding problem for the app you’re writing, or whether or not you’re going to have to shank that bitch across the hall if she tries to take credit for your ideas one more time – but you know he’d rather hear that you’re thinking of him.  When he tells you he was thinking about the paint color you suggested, assume the same. 

In fact, if you ask him what he’s thinking and the answer is anything other than food or sex, he’s probably making it up.  “I was just thinking about asking your folks to visit,” is probably a cover for the fact that he was thinking about a threesome with you and the new office manager. 

This lack of complete honesty is often the social lubricant that lets us live together in close quarters without generating too much friction.   Besides, when you ask him what he’s thinking about, the real answer is probably “Huh?”  We don’t do as much thinking as you would think. 


Now you know.  Please, feel free to comment with any questions you’d like answered!

Discussion Area - Leave a Comment