Dear Harry,
If a girl has bought a new pair of pants that she is really excited about, but you think they don’t look as great as she does, do you tell her that?”
- Sensitive
Well Sensitive, you pose an interesting question: Should I lie to a girl that has asked for my opinon? No. Do I? Occasionally – when I’m being cowardly.
There was this psychotherapist dude called Frank Farrelly who invented a thing he called Provocative Therapy. It’s bloody genius. It uses brutal honesty, humor and positive intent to empower people, give them perspective, and allow them to change.
The idea that you’re protecting someone’s feelings by lying to them is bogus. Be honest. You lie to make your own life easier. If someone close to you asks you questions and expects lies as answers, then they are all stuffed in the head and it’s your job to break that pattern. It’s not doing them any good.
From serious schizophrenics to boring old eating disorders and dull depressed people, the story is the same: They’ve been consistently lied to by the very people who should’ve been giving it to them straight. You can’t expect teachers and neighbours to say “Well, you’re acting like a complete nutter today” because it’s not their bloody job. It’s yours – if you love someone, honour them with your honesty. Even if that means telling them they’re crazy, fat or stupid.
The main difference between being an asshole and being a provocative coach is intent. If you’ve got a clear and positive outcome for someone, a well-formed idea of how to get there, and a loving and humorous demeanour, you can say almost anything you want. If you don’t, you’re just being a knob that insults people.
Think of the paranoid schizophrenic fresh out of the nut-bin who has a persisting ‘delusion’ that everyone is muttering about him behind his back. He’s probably not deluded at all – they most likely are. The obsessive compulsive that cleans his hands repeatedly probably has a more accurate perception of how dirty the world is than you do – you disgusting, germ-covered disease factory!
The girl who isn’t eating because she thinks she looks horrible is right – she looks hideous and gaunt. The problem is that when she was a chubber, her mum and friends and boyfriend all told her she looked fantastic and slim, but a glance in the mirror and a comparison to Posh told her she was in fact a chubber. She immediately has two choices: Distrust everything her loved ones tell her and/or develop the belief that she sees herself differently to how other people do, which is known as body dismorphic disorder.
Hurrah, from being a chubby innocent little girl, your kindness has just given her a randomly named psychological condition (dismorphia or depression or anxiety or some other pile of invented garbage) for which she’ll probably be prescribed medication. Yay, drugs!
Aren’t you so caring and kind…
What about mocking her desire to look like a fucking scarecrow? Why not swear a bit and play her own insecurity back to her, in a funny and playful way, so she can develop a bit of perspective and see how ridiculous it is, in this day and age, for a woman to rest her entire self-worth upon her ability to look like a slapper? Perhaps you should challenge her to assert herself, to display those other values she has that are valued by you and society at large, like her intelligence, social skills, sense of humour and ability to cook me some pie…
If she develops the ability to respond assertively, the fact that she noms down the odd cupcake too many might not matter all that much. And if it does – at least she’ll realise that if she’s unhealthy, a multitude of well-meaning lies won’t stop her getting early-onset diabetes and losing a leg. Amputation has always been a reliable way of dropping weight, hasn’t it?
It's never too late for honest feedback
You’ve got to be doing it for the right reason. You can’t be angry or annoyed, be funny and do it with a positive intent for them. If you mean to demean, you’re the asshole. If they don’t find it funny, then let them simmer, but leave them in a powerful state – don’t just hit and run. That doesn’t mean you’ve got to take responsibility for making sure they ‘get it’ – many times they don’t (or think they don’t) and often they’ll get angry at you and stay that way for a while. Let them – if you’re really doing it for their own good, then your own pathetic desire to be loved and understood and admired shouldn’t really matter now, should it (Harry)?
So Sensitive: If a girl asks me how I think she looks in pants, I’ll give it to her straight (unless I am being cowardly and selfish – which is most of the time, because I’m gutless and self-centred). Give her options to be however she wants, but always be honest and well-meaning with feedback – after all, that’s why she’s asking for it (and if she wasn’t, then she’s learned a valuable lesson: Ask someone else next time).
If you’d like to learn more about Provocative or NLP, perhaps you should come to a course run by Sue Knight hosted on my family property in Australia this coming November: http://www.sueknight.co.uk/Programmes/oz/sueintro.htm
See other resources:
http://www.associationforprovocativetherapy.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Farrelly
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Interestingly enough, I agree! What a great article! All of your articles are interesting come to think of it. Keep up the great work!
ass