I sometimes get in trouble with people when I answer a question honestly and it’s an answer they don’t like or agree with.

Anyone else ever have this problem? Sometimes, I really get where Larry David is coming from but this isn’t the time to review his show….

I’m blunt. Many of my readers have figured that out by now and some I think even like me for it. My friends, my good friends who know me deeply, tend to really appreciate it and call on me when they need a blunt, honest answer that won’t be sugar-coated. I like that I can offer that but honestly, it’s not the reason for my bluntness.

Being blunt comes naturally to me. It always has. As far back as I can remember, I’ve had the mindset that time is precious so why waste it? Sugar-coating something or not being honest until it surfaces is to me, SUCH A WASTE OF TIME.

And one thing I’m not willing to do is waste my time. I don’t know how much of it I have, so every second is going to be worth it.

Back to straight-forwardness always coming naturally to me… One story that comes to mind is when I was 22 and a cop bothered me about smoking a cigarette in broad daylight in a place smoking was allowed. I couldn’t help but ask him if he thought he was protecting and serving by carding someone minding their own business and enjoying a cigarette before work when people were getting raped and molested? To his credit, he smiled and told me about “the problem” of underage smoking.

When I see people lie or sugarcoat things so as not “to offend” or “be rude”, I can’t help but wonder, isn’t it more rude not to tell the truth? Why let someone feel good based on a lie or puffery? Can they really feel good about that? And when did one person’s opinion need to be politically correct or adhere to another’s set of rules to be valid?

Black and white is my language. If I have to decode what you are trying to say, chances are our friendship will remain on the surface. And God forbid if I have to call you out on what you’re pretending not to say, all hell will break loose and somehow I become the devil… It perplexes me….

But to show that this is not one-sided, allow me two honest-to-God true stories:

At 18, a college freshman, I was dating a boy in my dorm who I had a major crush on. I had broken up with my high school boyfriend two months prior – I had been with him for three years. Dating wasn’t something I was great at, not to mention my HS boyfriend was the popular senior and I was the loner sophomore.

A few weeks into dating this new boy at my college dorm, I get upset for some reason and get jealous and wanted him to sweep me off my feet. The girl across the hall from me, who had become a friend of mine as much as one could in a few weeks, told me some things: “Wake up, girl. You’re not his fucking girlfriend, so don’t act like it. You’re being jealous and needy. You need to go with it. Grow up.”

She nailed it. I’ve loved her since and she’s a big part of my life now, a girl I love and will adore forever.

At 20, a girl I met at my sorority came over to my boyfriend’s house (the boy mentioned above, whom I ended up dating for four years) and while we were hanging out, I said something stupid, like I asked where something was and it was right in front of me. This girl, who barely knew me, said, “Open your eyes fuck head.”

I fell in love with her. So blunt. So true. I laughed out loud.

These two girls are my best friends in the whole world and have been, going on twenty years now.

My point is with all this is – I love bluntness. Maybe it’s not for everyone but it’s for me and as long as it’s the truth and nothing but, why do I keep coming across people who give me shit for it?

One of my favorite authors/philosophers, Jean Paul Sartre, once said, “Hell is other people.”

In my twenties, I thought he was on to something.

In my thirties, I think it’s sad.

But as I near being forty, I realize hell is other people only if we let them be.

My sister told me that being blunt is part of my personality but with it comes the understanding that people will react as they see fit.

Great point.

Being blunt is a choice and perhaps a way to live a more honest life. Try it…..