645 lines
27 KiB
Markdown
645 lines
27 KiB
Markdown
---
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created_at: '2017-08-15T14:29:50.000Z'
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title: 'Radical Honesty: I Think You’re Fat (2007)'
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url: http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a26792/honesty0707/
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author: wallflower
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points: 41
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story_text:
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comment_text:
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num_comments: 14
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story_id:
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story_title:
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story_url:
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parent_id:
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created_at_i: 1502807390
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_tags:
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- story
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- author_wallflower
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- story_15018469
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objectID: '15018469'
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year: 2007
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---
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**Here's the truth about why I'm writing this article:**
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I want to fulfill my contract with my boss. I want to avoid getting
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fired. I want all the attractive women I knew in high school and college
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to read it. I want them to be amazed and impressed and feel a vague
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regret over their decision not to have sex with me, and maybe if I get
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divorced or become a widower, [I can have sex with them
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someday](/lifestyle/sex/advice/a9353/best-sex-positions/) at a reunion.
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I want Hollywood to buy my article and turn it into a movie, even though
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they kind of already made the movie ten years ago with Jim Carrey.
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I want to get congratulatory e-mails and job offers that I can politely
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decline. Or accept if they're really good. Then get a generous
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counteroffer from my boss.
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To be totally honest, I was sorry I mentioned this idea to my boss about
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three seconds after I opened my mouth. Because I knew the article would
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be a pain in the ass to pull off. Dammit. I should have let my colleague
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Tom Chiarella write it. But I didn't want to seem lazy.
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What I mentioned to my boss was this: a movement called Radical Honesty.
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Advertisement - Continue Reading
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Below
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![](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
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Universal Pictures
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The movement was founded by a sixty-six-year-old Virginia-based
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psychotherapist named Brad Blanton. He says everybody would be happier
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if we just stopped lying. Tell the truth, all the time. This would be
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radical enough -- a world without fibs -- but Blanton goes further. He
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says we should toss out the filters between our brains and our mouths.
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If you think it, say it. Confess to your boss your secret plans to start
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your own company. If you're having fantasies about your wife's sister,
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Blanton says to tell your wife and tell her sister. It's the only path
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to authentic relationships. It's the only way to smash through
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modernity's soul-deadening alienation. Oversharing? No such thing.
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Yes. I know. One of the most idiotic ideas ever, right up there with
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Vanilla Coke and giving Phil Spector a gun permit. Deceit makes our
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world go round. Without lies, marriages would crumble, workers would be
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fired, egos would be shattered, governments would collapse.
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> Without lies, marriages would crumble, workers would be fired, egos
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> would be shattered, governments would collapse
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And yet...maybe there's something to it. Especially for me. I have a
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lying problem. Mine aren't big lies. They aren't lies like "I cannot
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recall that crucial meeting from two months ago, Senator." Mine are
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little lies. White lies. Half-truths. The kind we all tell. But I tell
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dozens of them every day. "Yes, let's definitely get together soon."
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"I'd love to, but I have a touch of the stomach flu." "No, we can't buy
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a toy today -- the toy store is closed." It's bad. Maybe a couple of
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weeks of truth-immersion therapy would do me good.
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I e-mail Blanton to ask if I can come down to Virginia and get some
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pointers before embarking on my Radical Honesty experiment. He writes
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back: "I appreciate you for apparently having a real interest and hope
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you're not just doing a cutesy little superficial dipshit job like most
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journalists."
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I'm already nervous. I better start off with a clean slate. I confess I
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lied to him in my first e-mail -- that I haven't ordered all his books
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on Amazon yet. I was just trying to impress upon him that I was serious
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about his work. He writes back: "Thanks for your honesty in attempting
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to guess what your manipulative and self-protective motive must have
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been."
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**Blanton lives in a house** he built himself, perched on a hill in the
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town of Stanley, Virginia, population 1,331. We're sitting on white
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chairs in a room with enormous windows and a crackling fireplace. He's
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swirling a glass of Maker's Mark bourbon and water and telling me why
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it's important to live with no lies.
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"You'll have really bad times, you'll have really great times, but
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you'll contribute to other people because you haven't been dancing on
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eggshells your whole fucking life. It's a better life."
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"Do you think it's ever okay to lie?" I ask.
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"I advocate never lying in personal relationships. But if you have Anne
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Frank in your attic and a Nazi knocks on the door, lie....I lie to any
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government official." (Blanton's politics are just this side of Noam
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Chomsky's.) "I lie to the IRS. I always take more deductions than are
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justified. I lie in golf. And in poker."
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Blanton adjusts his crotch. I expected him to be a bully. Or maybe a
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new-age huckster with a bead necklace who sits cross-legged on the
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floor. He's neither. He's a former Texan with a big belly and a big
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laugh and a big voice. He's got a bushy head of gray hair and a twang
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that makes his bye sound like bah. He calls himself "white trash with a
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Ph.D." If you mixed DNA from Lyndon Johnson, Ken Kesey, and threw in the
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non-annoying parts of Dr. Phil, you might get Blanton.
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Advertisement - Continue Reading
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Below
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![](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
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[](//pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.esquire.com%2Fnews-politics%2Fa26792%2Fhonesty0707%2F&description=I%20Think%20You%27re%20Fat&media=https%3A%2F%2Fhips.hearstapps.com%2Fesq.h-cdn.co%2Fassets%2F16%2F43%2F1477434013-gettyimages-90737598.jpg%3Fresize%3D1600%3A%2A)
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Are there any non-annoying parts of Dr. Phil?
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Getty Images
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He ran for Congress twice, with the novel promise that he'd be an honest
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politician. In 2004, he got a surprising 25 percent of the vote in his
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Virginia district as an independent. In 2006, the Democrats considered
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endorsing him but got skittish about his weeklong workshops, which
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involve a day of total nudity. They also weren't crazy that he's been
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married five times (currently to a Swedish flight attendant twenty-six
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years his junior). He ran again but withdrew when it became clear he was
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going to be crushed.
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My interview with Blanton is unlike any other I've had in fifteen years
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as a journalist. Usually, there's a fair amount of ass kissing and
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diplomacy. You approach the controversial stuff on tippy toes (the way
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Barbara Walters once asked Richard Gere about that terrible, terrible
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rumor). With Blanton, I can say anything that pops into my mind. In
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fact, it would be rude not to say it. I'd be insulting his life's work.
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It's my first taste of Radical Honesty, and it's liberating,
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exhilarating.
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When Blanton rambles on about President Bush, I say, "You know, I
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stopped listening about a minute ago."
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"Thanks for telling me," he says.
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I tell him, "You look older than you do in the author photo for your
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book," and when he veers too far into therapyspeak, I say, "That just
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sounds like gobbledygook."
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"Thanks," he replies." Or, "That's fine."
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Blanton has a temper -- he threatened to "beat the shit" out of a
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newspaper editor during the campaign -- but it hasn't flared tonight.
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The closest he comes to attacking me is when he says I am self-indulgent
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and Esquire is pretentious. Both true.
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Blanton pours himself another bourbon and water. He's got a wad of
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chewing tobacco in his cheek, and when he spits into the fireplace, the
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flames crackle louder.
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"My boss says you sound like a dick," I say.
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"Tell your boss he's a dick," he says.
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"I'm glad you picked your nose just now," I say. "Because it was funny
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and disgusting, and it'll make a good detail for the article."
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"That's fine. I'll pick my ass in a minute." Then he unleashes his deep
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Texan laugh: heh, heh, heh. (He also burps and farts throughout our
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conversation; he believes the one-cheek sneak is "a little deceitful.")
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No topic is off-limits. "I've slept with more than five hundred women
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and about a half dozen men," he tells me. "I've had a whole bunch of
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threesomes" -- one of which involved a hermaphrodite prostitute equipped
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with dual organs.
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> 'I've had a whole bunch of threesomes -- one of which involved a
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> hermaphrodite prostitute equipped with dual organs'
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Advertisement - Continue Reading Below
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What about animals?
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Blanton thinks for a minute. "I let my dog lick my dick once."
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If he hadn't devoted his life to Radical Honesty, I'd say he was, to use
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his own phrase, as full of shit as a Christmas turkey. But I don't think
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he is. I believe he's telling the truth. Which is a startling thing for
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a journalist to confront. Generally, I'm devoting 30 percent of my
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mental energy to figuring out what a source is lying about or hiding
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from me. Another 20 percent goes into scheming about how to unearth that
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buried truth. No need for that today.
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"I was disappointed when I visited your office," I tell Blanton.
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(Earlier he had shown me a small, cluttered single-room office that
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serves as the Radical Honesty headquarters.) "I'm impressed by
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exteriors, so I would have been impressed by an office building in some
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city, not a room in Butt Fuck, Virginia. For my article, I want this to
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be a legitimate movement, not a fringe movement."
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"What about a legitimate fringe movement?" asks Blanton, who has, by
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this time, had three bourbons.
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Blanton's legitimate fringe movement is sizable but not huge. He's sold
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175,000 books in eleven languages and has twenty-five trainers assisting
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in workshops and running practice groups around the country.
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Now, my editor thinks I'm overreaching here and trying too hard to
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justify this article's existence, but I think society is speeding toward
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its own version of Radical Honesty. The truth of our lives is
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increasingly being exposed, both voluntarily (MySpace pages, transparent
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business transactions) and involuntarily. (See Gonzales and Google, or
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ask Alec Baldwin.) For better or worse, we may all soon be Brad
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Blantons. I need to be prepared. \[Such bullshit. --
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Ed.\]
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![](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
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[](//pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.esquire.com%2Fnews-politics%2Fa26792%2Fhonesty0707%2F&description=I%20Think%20You%27re%20Fat&media=https%3A%2F%2Fhips.hearstapps.com%2Fesq.h-cdn.co%2Fassets%2F16%2F43%2F1477434323-alec-baldwin.png%3Fresize%3D1600%3A%2A)
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Alec Baldwin in his natural state
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Sony
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**I return to New York** and immediately set about delaying my
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experiment. When you're with Blanton, you think, Yes, I can do this\!
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The truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth. But when I get back
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to bosses and fragile friendships, I continue my lying ways.
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"How's Radical Honesty going?" my boss asks.
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"It's okay," I lie. "A little slow."
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A couple of weeks later, I finally get some inspiration from my friend's
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five-year-old daughter, Alison. We are in Central Park for a play date.
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Out of nowhere, Alison looks at me evenly and says, "Your teeth are
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yellow because you drink coffee all day."
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Damn. Now that's some radical honesty for you. Maybe I should be more
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like a five-year-old. An hour later, she shows me her new pet bug -- a
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beetle of some sort that she has in her cupped hands.
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"It's napping," she whispers.
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I nudge the insect with my finger. It doesn't move. Should I play along?
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No. I should tell her the truth, like she told me about my teeth.
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"It's not napping."
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She looks confused.
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"It's dead."
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Advertisement - Continue Reading Below
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Alison runs to her father, dismayed. "Daddy, he just said a bad word."
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I feel like an asshole. I frightened a five-year-old, probably out of
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revenge for an insult about my oral hygiene. I postpone again -- for a
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few more weeks. And then my boss tells me he needs the article for the
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July issue.
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> I frightened a five-year-old, probably out of revenge for an insult
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> about my oral hygiene
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**I start in again** at dinner with my friend Brian. We are talking
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about his new living situation, and I decide to tell him the truth.
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"You know, I forget your fiancée's name."
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This is highly unacceptable -- they've been together for years; I've met
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her several times.
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"It's Jenny."
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In his book, Blanton talks about the thrill of total candor, the Space
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Mountain-worthy adrenaline rush you get from breaking taboos. As he
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writes, "You learn to like the excitement of mild, ongoing risk taking."
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This I felt.
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Luckily, Brian doesn't seem too pissed. So I decide to push my luck.
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"Yes, that's right. Jenny. Well, I resent you for not inviting me to you
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and Jenny's wedding. I don't want to go, since it's in Vermont, but I
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wanted to be invited."
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"Well, I resent you for not being invited to your wedding."
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"You weren't invited? Really? I thought I had."
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"Nope."
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"Sorry, man. That was a mistake."
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A breakthrough\! We are communicating\! Blanton is right. Brian and I
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crushed some eggshells. We are not stoic, emotionless men. I'm enjoying
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this. A little bracing honesty can be a mood booster.
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The next day, we get a visit from my wife's dad and stepmom.
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"Did you get the birthday gift I sent you?" asks her stepmom.
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"Uh-huh," I say.
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She sent me a gift certificate to Saks Fifth Avenue.
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"And? Did you like it?"
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"Not really. I don't like gift certificates. It's like you're giving me
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an errand to run."
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"Well, uh . . ."
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Once again, I felt the thrill of inappropriate candor. And I felt
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something else, too. The paradoxical joy of being free from choice. I
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had no choice but to tell the truth. I didn't have to rack my brain
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figuring out how to hedge it, spin it, massage it.
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> I had no choice but to tell the truth. I didn't have to rack my brain
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> figuring out how to hedge it, spin it, massage it
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Advertisement - Continue Reading Below
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"Just being honest," I shrug. Nice touch, I decide; helps take the edge
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off. She's got a thick skin. She'll be okay. And I'll tell you this:
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I'll never get a damn gift certificate from her again.
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**I still tell plenty of lies** every day, but by the end of the week
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I've slashed the total by at least 40 percent. Still, the giddiness is
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wearing off. A life of radical honesty is filled with a hundred
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confrontations every day. Small, but they're relentless.
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"Yes, I'll come to your office, but I resent you for making me travel."
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"My boss said I should invite you to this meeting, although it wouldn't
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have occurred to me to do so."
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"I have nothing else to say to you. I have run out of conversation."
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My wife tells me a story about switching operating systems on her
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computer. In the middle, I have to go help our son with something, then
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forget to come back.
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"Do you want to hear the end of the story or not?" she asks.
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"Well...is there a payoff?"
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"Fuck you."
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It would have been a lot easier to have kept my mouth closed and
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listened to her. It reminds me of an issue I raised with Blanton: Why
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make waves? "Ninety percent of the time I love my wife," I told him.
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"And 10 percent of the time I hate her. Why should I hurt her feelings
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that 10 percent of the time? Why not just wait until that phase passes
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and I return to the true feeling, which is that I love her?"
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Blanton's response: "Because you're a manipulative, lying son of a
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bitch."
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Okay, he's right. It's manipulative and patronizing to shut up and
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listen. But it's exhausting not to.
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One other thing is also becoming apparent: There's a fine line between
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radical honesty and creepiness. Or actually no line at all. It's simple
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logic: Men think about sex every three minutes, as the scientists at
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Redbook remind us. If you speak whatever's on your mind, you'll be
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talking about sex every three minutes.
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> There's a fine line between radical honesty and creepiness. Or
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> actually no line at all
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I have a business breakfast with an editor from Rachael Ray's magazine.
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As we're sitting together, I tell her that I remember what she wore the
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first time we met -- a black shirt that revealed her shoulders in a
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provocative way. I say that I'd try to sleep with her if I were single.
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I confess to her that I just attempted (unsuccessfully) to look down her
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shirt during breakfast.
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She smiles. Though I do notice she leans back farther in her seat.
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The thing is, the separate cubbyholes of my personality are merging.
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Usually, there's a professional self, a home self, a friend self, a
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with-the-guys self. Now, it's one big improper mess. This woman and I
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have either taken a step forward in our relationship, or she'll never
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return my calls again.
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When I get home, I keep the momentum going. I call a friend to say that
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I fantasize about his wife. (He says he likes my wife, too, and suggests
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a key party.)
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I inform our twenty-seven-year-old nanny that "if my wife left me, I
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would ask you out on a date, because I think you are stunning."
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Advertisement - Continue Reading Below
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She laughs. Nervously.
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"I think that makes you uncomfortable, so I won't mention it again. It
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was just on my mind."
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Now I've made my own skin crawl. I feel like I should just buy a trench
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coat and start lurking around subway platforms. Blanton says he doesn't
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believe sex talk in the workplace counts as sexual harassment -- it's
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tight-assed society's fault if people can't handle the truth -- but my
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nanny confession just feels like pure abuse of power.
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> Now I've made my own skin crawl. I feel like I should just buy a
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> trench coat and start lurking around subway platforms
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All this lasciviousness might be more palatable if I were a single man.
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In fact, I have a theory: I think Blanton devised Radical Honesty partly
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as a way to pick up women. It's a brilliant strategy. The antithesis of
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mind games. Transparent mating.
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And according to Blanton, it's effective. He tells me about a woman he
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once met on a Paris subway and asked out for tea. When they sat down, he
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said, "I didn't really want any tea; I was just trying to figure out a
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way to delay you so I could talk to you for a while, because I want to
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go to bed with you." They went to bed together. Or another seduction
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technique of his: "Wanna fuck?"
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"That works?" I asked.
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"Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but it's the creation of
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possibility."
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**I lied today.** A retired man from New Hampshire -- a friend of a
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friend -- wrote some poems and sent them to me. His wife just died, and
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he's taken up poetry. He just wanted someone in publishing to read his
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work. A professional opinion.
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I read them. I didn't like them much, but I wrote to him that I thought
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they were very good.
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So I e-mail Blanton for the first time since our meeting and confess
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what I did. I write, "His wife just died, he doesn't have friends. He's
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kind of pathetic. I read his stuff, or skimmed it actually. I didn't
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like it. I thought it was boring and badly written. So I e-mailed a lie.
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I said I really like the poems and hope they get published. He wrote me
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back so excited and how it made his week and how he was about to give up
|
||
on them but my e-mail gave him the stamina to keep trying."
|
||
|
||
I ask Blanton whether I made a mistake.
|
||
|
||
He responds curtly. I need to come to his eight-day workshop to "even
|
||
begin to get what \[Radical Honesty\] is about." He says we need to meet
|
||
in person.
|
||
|
||
Meet in person? Did he toss down so many bourbons I vanished from his
|
||
memory? I tell him we did meet.
|
||
|
||
Blanton writes back testily that he remembers. But I still need to take
|
||
a workshop (price tag: $2,800). His only advice on my quandary: "Send
|
||
the man the e-mail you sent me about lying to him and ask him to call
|
||
you when he gets it...and see what you learn."
|
||
|
||
Advertisement - Continue Reading Below
|
||
|
||
Show him the e-mail? Are you kidding? What a hardcore bastard.
|
||
|
||
In his book, Radical Honesty, Blanton advises us to start sentences with
|
||
the words "I resent you for" or "I appreciate you for." So I write him
|
||
back.
|
||
|
||
"I resent you for being so different in these e-mails than you were when
|
||
we met. You were friendly and engaging and encouraging when we met. Now
|
||
you seem to have turned judgmental and tough. I resent you for giving me
|
||
the advice to break that old man's heart by telling him that his poems
|
||
suck."
|
||
|
||
Blanton responds quickly. First, he doesn't like that I expressed my
|
||
resentment by e-mail. I should have come to see him. "What you don't
|
||
seem to get yet, A.J., is that the reason for expressing resentment
|
||
directly and in person is so that you can experience in your body the
|
||
sensations that occur when you express the resentment, while at the same
|
||
time being in the presence of the person you resent, and so you can stay
|
||
with them until the sensations arise and recede and then get back to
|
||
neutral -- which is what forgiveness is."
|
||
|
||
Second, he tells me that telling the old man the truth would be
|
||
compassionate, showing the "authentic caring underneath your usual
|
||
intellectual bullshit and overvaluing of your critical judgment. Your
|
||
lie is not useful to him. In fact, it is simply avoiding your
|
||
responsibility as one human being to another. That's okay. It happens
|
||
all the time. It is not a mortal sin. But don't bullshit yourself about
|
||
it being kind."
|
||
|
||
He ends with this: "I don't want to spend a lot of time explaining
|
||
things to you for your cute little project of playing with telling the
|
||
truth if you don't have the balls to try it."
|
||
|
||
Condescending prick.
|
||
|
||
I know my e-mail to the old man was wrong. I shouldn't have been so
|
||
rah-rah effusive. But here, I've hit the outer limit of Radical Honesty,
|
||
a hard wall. I can't trash the old man.
|
||
|
||
I try to understand Blanton's point about compassion. To most of us,
|
||
honesty often means cruelty.
|
||
|
||
But to Blanton, honesty and compassion are the ones in sync. It's an
|
||
intriguing way to look at the world, but I just don't buy it in the case
|
||
of the widower poet. Screw Blanton. (By the way: I broke Radical Honesty
|
||
and changed the identifying details of the old-man story so as not to
|
||
humiliate him. Also, I've messed a bit with the timeline of events to
|
||
simplify things. Sorry.)
|
||
|
||
**To compensate** for my wimpiness, I decide to toughen up. Which is
|
||
probably the exact wrong thing to do. Today, I'm getting a haircut, and
|
||
my barber is telling me he doesn't want his wife to get pregnant because
|
||
she'll get too fat (a bit of radical honesty of his own), and I say,
|
||
"You know, I'm tired. I have a cold. I don't want to talk anymore. I
|
||
want to read."
|
||
|
||
"Okay," he says, wielding his scissors, "go ahead and read."
|
||
|
||
Later, I do the same thing with my in-laws when they're yapping on about
|
||
preschools. "I'm bored," I announce. "I'll be back later." And with
|
||
that, I leave the living room.
|
||
|
||
I tell Blanton, hoping for his approval. Did anything come of it? he
|
||
asks. Any discussions and insights? Hmmm.
|
||
|
||
He's right. If you're going to be a schmuck, at least you should find
|
||
some redeeming quality in it. Blanton's a master of this. One of his
|
||
tricks is to say things with such glee and enthusiasm, it's hard to get
|
||
too pissed. "You may be a petty asshole," he says, "but at least you're
|
||
not a secret petty asshole." Then he'll laugh.
|
||
|
||
I have yet to learn that trick myself. Consider how I handled this scene
|
||
at a diner a couple of blocks from my apartment.
|
||
|
||
"Everything okay?" asked our server, an Asian man with tattoos.
|
||
|
||
"Yeah, except for the coffee. I always have to order espresso here,
|
||
because the espresso tastes like regular coffee. The regular coffee here
|
||
is terrible. Can't you guys make stronger coffee?"
|
||
|
||
The waiter said no and walked away. My friend looked at me. "I'm
|
||
embarrassed for you," he said. "And I'm embarrassed to be around you."
|
||
|
||
"I know. Me, too." I felt like a Hollywood producer who parks in
|
||
handicapped spots. I ask Blanton what I should have
|
||
done.
|
||
|
||
![](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
|
||
[](//pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.esquire.com%2Fnews-politics%2Fa26792%2Fhonesty0707%2F&description=I%20Think%20You%27re%20Fat&media=https%3A%2F%2Fhips.hearstapps.com%2Fesq.h-cdn.co%2Fassets%2F16%2F43%2F1477434856-ari-gold-entourage.jpg%3Fresize%3D1600%3A%2A)
|
||
|
||
My Ari Gold moment
|
||
|
||
Warner Brothers
|
||
|
||
"You should have said, 'This coffee tastes like shit\!' " he says,
|
||
cackling.
|
||
|
||
Advertisement - Continue Reading Below
|
||
|
||
**I will say this:** One of the best parts of Radical Honesty is that
|
||
I'm saving a whole lot of time. It's a cut-to-the-chase way to live. At
|
||
work, I've been waiting for my boss to reply to a memo for ten days. So
|
||
I write him: "I'm annoyed that you didn't respond to our memo earlier.
|
||
But at the same time, I'm relieved, because then if we don't nail one of
|
||
the things you want, we can blame any delays on your lack of response."
|
||
|
||
Pressing send makes me nervous -- but the e-mail works. My boss
|
||
responds: "I will endeavor to respond by tomorrow. Been gone from N.Y.
|
||
for two weeks." It is borderline apologetic. I can push my power with my
|
||
boss further than I thought.
|
||
|
||
Later, a friend of a friend wants to meet for a meal. I tell him I don't
|
||
like leaving my house. "I agree to meet some people for lunch because I
|
||
fear hurting their feelings if I don't. And in this terrifying age where
|
||
everyone has a blog, I don't want to offend people, because then they'd
|
||
write on their blogs what an asshole I am, and it would turn up in every
|
||
Google search for the rest of my life."
|
||
|
||
He writes back: "Normally, I don't really like meeting editors anyway.
|
||
Makes me ill to think about it, because I'm afraid of coming off like
|
||
the idiot that, deep down, I suspect I am."
|
||
|
||
That's one thing I've noticed: When I am radically honest, people become
|
||
radically honest themselves. I feel my resentment fade away. I like this
|
||
guy. We have a good meeting.
|
||
|
||
> When I am radically honest, people become radically honest themselves
|
||
|
||
In fact, all my relationships can take a whole lot more truth than I
|
||
expected. Consider this one: For years, I've had a chronic problem where
|
||
I refer to my wife, Julie, by my sister's name, Beryl. I always catch
|
||
myself midway through and pretend it didn't happen. I've never confessed
|
||
to Julie. Why should I? It either means that I'm sexually attracted to
|
||
my sister, which is not good. Or that I think of my wife as my sister,
|
||
also not good.
|
||
|
||
But today, in the kitchen, when I have my standard mental sister-wife
|
||
mix-up, I decide to tell Julie about it.
|
||
|
||
"That's strange," she says.
|
||
|
||
We talk about it. I feel unburdened, closer to my wife now that we share
|
||
this quirky, slightly disturbing knowledge. I realize that by keeping it
|
||
secret, I had given it way too much weight. I hope she feels the same
|
||
way.
|
||
|
||
**I call up Blanton** one last time, to get his honest opinion about how
|
||
I've done.
|
||
|
||
"I'm finishing my experiment," I say.
|
||
|
||
"You going to start lying again?" he asks.
|
||
|
||
"Hell yeah."
|
||
|
||
"Oh, shit. It didn't work."
|
||
|
||
"But I'm going to lie less than I did before."
|
||
|
||
I tell him about my confession to Julie that I sometimes want to call
|
||
her Beryl. "No big deal," says Blanton. "People in other cultures have
|
||
sex with their sisters all the time."
|
||
|
||
I bring up the episode about telling the editor from Rachael Ray's
|
||
magazine that I tried to look down her shirt, but he sounds
|
||
disappointed. "Did you tell your wife?" he asks. "That's the good part."
|
||
|
||
Finally, I describe to him how I told Julie that I didn't care to hear
|
||
the end of her story about fixing her computer. Blanton asks how she
|
||
responded.
|
||
|
||
Advertisement - Continue Reading Below
|
||
|
||
"She said, 'Fuck you.' "
|
||
|
||
"That's good\!" Blanton says. "I like that. That's communicating."
|
||
|
||
Esquire Editor-at-Large A.J. Jacobs is the author of A Year of Living
|
||
Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as
|
||
Possible, published by Simon & Schuster.
|
||
|
||
Published in the July 2007 issue
|