The Art of Pleasantries in Conversations

Guess how many times you navigate conversations and substitute truths with pleasantries to create a better sound garden for your listeners to enjoy.

“Do you like the colour of my dress?”

“Can you guess my age?”

“How was your day?”

Honesty. That’s all anyone asks. It’s a simple process. A question is presented. What follows should be a logical, honest answer.

Here’s a fun fact about responses: There are several answers to any question, and each varies according to the moment, the relationship dynamic and the preferred outcome. Do you respond truthfully or provide a piece of pleasantry if the truth is likely to offend?

You may think you have a choice, and I suppose you do, but life isn’t so black and white. Underlying motivations guide you to respond appropriately to the situation at hand. The choice to use truth is grey.

Enter: The Lie.

“I just LOVE that dress!”

“My day has been FANTASTIC! Thank you for asking.”

“You’re not yet FORTY, right?”

It’s polite to be nice to each other. It’s nice to be kind. We call it socializing. That’s what matters. Besides, it’s not a real lie if it doesn’t harm anyone — and it’s told with good intentions, right?

Unless it’s math-related, absolute accuracy in conversations doesn’t matter. In the scheme of things, an unsuitably matched dress is nothing if the first and only chance to see it is at the restaurant. The wearer cannot change it, and a lingering consciousness about the dress will remain throughout the meal, spoiling it for two people.

Inaccurate age guessing is nothing if the answer ends up being lower than the person’s actual age.

And one of our shitty days doesn’t need to become someone else’s shitty day because we told them our day was a shitty one.

Giving someone an inaccurate answer in these instances isn’t end-of-the-world stuff. Affirming and nurturing relationships matters much more.

“I’m EXTREMELY well, thank you. Thank you for asking.”

No one loses. No one dies. Everyone gets on with their lives and is just a little bit better for exchanging niceties.

Humans keep from speaking the truth many times a day — and they don’t even know it. There’s also a wide latitude of subjectivity around all things we say. Your interpretations are different to mine. Don’t forget that creativity plays a role here. Everyone likes a good story. That’s when the truth is allowed to take a brief holiday in favour of the entertainment.

Santa Claus. The Tooth Fairy. The Easter Bunny. The Min Min Men.

Lies.

Okay, those stories aren’t lies. Well, yes, they are, but they don’t count. They’re fiction — falsehoods woven into the tapestry of culture to entertain and delight. The truth need not apply if it teaches lessons, makes us laugh, or helps us to cry.

But there’s a slimy lie that snakes its way in and out of conversation. Sometimes, we don’t even notice that it’s there. It’s done to deceive on purpose. That’s the lie we hate most. It’s the one we can identify after some in-depth fact-checking.

And then there’s the lie we don’t know about.

Silence.

I love this lie best. Truth abstinence is cunning. It’s a lie that never even touches the lips. Don’t get me wrong; sometimes silence is just what it is: nothing, a nil response with zero information or intention. There is nothing to find. It’s harmless.

Often, it’s not.

I’ve bitten my lip many times to keep the peace.

I practice silence at work, at home, and with those I love. Not every thought inside my mind is turned into sound, and not every fact is spoken. I exercise good word restraint. I wallow in the dark waters of silence. More about that in a moment.

There can be good reasons to lie using silence, and the deception behind it is well-intended.

Let’s say you have just been informed that you have terminal cancer. You’re old, and the people around you are young; rather than creating worry in the people you love, you decide to take the less-is-more approach and keep the prognosis to yourself. It’s an outright lie, but kindness surrounds it because you don’t want to stop the sunshine lighting their lives. You didn’t deceive your people. You cared for them.

Good on you for considering others first.

These aren’t lies. They are thoughts sprouting sound flowers. You gave your people a lovely, fertile garden to stroll through. Bad news doesn’t need to exist. Believers will enjoy the walk because it’s nicer than knowing that the garden is poisoned and will soon become a barren wasteland.

I haven’t said a lot about my situation. It hardly compares to that, anyway.

In my time, I’ve cultivated many gardens for my listeners to look at and experience. I’ve also practised silence, lots of well-thought-out silence. So many lies have been told and not told at once.

Living with lies comes with a price.

Keeping secrets has its limits and downsides. Don’t worry. No lie has been leaked yet. My words are contained and arranged to stop lies from being exposed to others. Some of my actions are questionable, but fortunately, I’m no one special. I move within the spaces of mediocrity. No one notices my actions or cares enough to know the root of my many silences.

My wife should, but she doesn’t care to know. Her career feeds her soul, and there’s always another committee or personal development group that calls for her attention.

Only the surrogates get to see the real me. They gaze into the darkness. And then they vanish.

Oops. Did I say that aloud?

That’s not like me to slip up!

-M. Felding

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