That’s why I prefer “to be frank” or “to be blunt.” Same implication but without that possibility.

“To be honest” is mostly used in two situations:

• to warn the listener that they might not like what they’re going to hear; e.g. “to be honest your lasagna is a bit too salty”
• to highlight an apparent contradiction; e.g. “I like lasagna, but to be honest I’d rather eat pierogi today.”

It should almost never be interpreted literally.

That’s the whole basis of CBT

Naw, this one works. If you look like you know you’re doing and are good at figuring shit out for yourself, you are good in almost all situations. We are all bumbling through life; some are better at pretending they aren’t.

Agloe, NY, was a fake town designed as a copyright trap on a map, but then a general store was built on that spot. When a company was caught stealing the map, they used the general store as proof the town actually existed.

In Iceland in 2010, a group of comedians made a joke political party called the Best Party, with a platform that amateurs can’t mess up more than the pros. They won the mayoral election.

There’s a youtube video about how to pretend you know how to play guitar, which suggests you learn just four chords and cycle between them. The comments noted that this is just a beginners guide to actually knowing how to play guitar.

George Lazenby lied on his CV when he auditioned for James Bond. When he confessed this to the director, the director pointed out how he had already convinced an audience with his performance. By acting like an actor, he had shown his ability to act.

The line between pretending and doing is thin, and you learn by doing, so you can learn by pretending to do. If it’s a good enough fake, it may as well be real.

I have found this one to be largely true. “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”

Scrubs’ version was, “Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will hurt forever.”

I once made my mom go quiet, and then apologize to me, defeating this point.

I was telling her that she could be really cruel with her words sometimes, and that I’d like to her to be less so. She told me I shouldn’t take it so seriously, grow a thicker skin, that they’re just words.

But she’s my mother, and what she thinks of me and what she says will always weigh ten times more in my mind than the words of almost anyone else. Ignoring what strangers think of me is easy, but with her, it’s literally impossible. I was telling her off because I knew she doesn’t mean the worst of what she says, and that despite that, coming from her every word hits like a freight train. That it takes enormous effort to think through and discount the parts she doesn’t mean. I told her that.

At the time I felt really clever for making that point. Getting her to actually go quiet and say sorry felt amazing, so it stayed with me.

I later realized it probably landed so hard because of how her parents treated/treat her.

“At least, not immediately visibly. But over time and with enough repetition and obsession they will carve canyons through my personality and emotional wellbeing. These canyons will be filled with emotional sticks and stones; huge, warped phantoms of the words they represent.”

Take care with your words y’all. But also, who cares what they think!

The only thing I “understand” is that all the rules are arbitrary as all fuck, society was made up by idiots with giant sticks up their arses, and everyone should go fuck themselves.

See? They were right, you do understand now. 😜

We still experience bad times. But the point is not to be a dick

You can have the worst day of you life and still have good vibes. The real toxic saying would be “good moods only.”

Hmmm, while I see your point on the phrase, my friend group and I only ever use it on subjective things. Like orange juice or chocolate milk being better, for example. If we’re both arguing (in a fun way) and have no good points to change the other’s mind, then we agree to disagree. Haha

I find it really useful to shut down discussions where no one is budging and are just overall a big waste of time. As an example, if I’ve been trying to convince someone that the earth is round for 10 minutes and they clearly don’t have any interest in changing their view, I’ll just spare me the trouble and say it. If they still refuse to let it go, I start blindly agreeing with them, that usually does the trick.

but there is just no right or wrong answer to every question… sometimes it’s just about opinion.

sometimes these questions are trivial (which color of tie should I wear with this shirt) and sometimes they are literally life and death questions (should death penalty be legal)… and there will always be people with opposing opinions on them. “agreeing to disagree” is literally the best possible thing they can do to live in the same society.

Most people don’t care about what’s true, something that took me forever to realize. Encountering humanity under the assumption that everyone cares about the truth (or any aspect of empirical and normative reality) is bound to be suuuper confusing until you figure things out. People are literally animals (we forget that), and animals are just trying to survive. Some of them are cute or loving. Not all of them are particularly “good,” and even fewer are willing to sacrifice creature comforts in pursuit of some abstract virtues. That’s why Trump gets any votes.

I use “honestly” or “to be honest” myself sometimes.

It’s a simple way to convey “I’m going to give you a risky or unpopular opinion. Can be unpopular with you personally, or for public in general. But either way I value the honesty of sharing that opinion over the unpopularity it will cause”

I can see why you would hate it. it wouldn’t be unusual for people to share bigoted/sexist/violent opinions on subjects they should keep to themselves.

That sounds too broad. The vast majority of things in my life haven’t killed me but also haven’t maimed me. Some of it even has made me stronger, such as various things at a few gyms I’ve been to.

Yeah. I always vehemently agree with the person misusing. “Yes! That’s exactly it. A few bad apples spoil the bunch. Perfectly captures the problem, friend! Good call.”

In French, it is actuall “a single apple” spoil the whole thing “une pomme pourrie gâte tout le panier”