Welcome back to TWAT: The World According to Tony. This is where we talk about life lessons I’ve learned over the years and incorporated into my world perspective. Today’s theory comes from Divorce Court.
I hadn’t watched Divorce Court in a while, but earlier this year I caught an episode over a friend’s house. This couple was getting nasty. It got so bad, the husband (who had custody of their child) had his ~9 year old son write a letter to the judge to bolster his case.
“How dare you unnecessarily involve a child in these proceedings to make yourself look better?,” Judge Toler asked (I’m paraphrasing). The husband tried to justify it, but she wasn’t having it. She went on to explain to him the two different kinds of truth: the truth and the truth that makes you feel better.
For example:
Freshman year of undergrad, I met this girl (let’s call her Smiley). We lived in the same dorm and also had a class together. An international student, she was very sweet, laughed at all my jokes and overall was one of my favorite people to spend time with.
Eventually she developed feelings for me. I had to let her down gently, but you know how that goes. She was (understandably) hurt, and didn’t take it too well. It strained our relationship for the rest of the year.
Neither one of us returned to our school sophomore year (for different reasons). She went back to her home country, but we managed to stay in touch via phone and email.
Over the years, I started coming out to mutual friends. It eventually got back to Smiley and one day I got a phone call from her asking if I was gay. I denied it.
There were three main reasons why I didn’t have sex with Smiley (in no particular order):
1. I was gay (read: primarily attracted to men)
2. We were really close and I didn’t want to ruin the friendship
3. She was fat
Yeah, I know.
I don’t want to get too deep into sexual orientation right now (for another post) but simply put, I am attracted to women, but choose not to have sex with them for political reasons. And as with most American men, I was indoctrinated with hegemonic standards of female beauty growing up (skinny, long hair, fair complexion). If I was going to have sex with a woman (which was already asking a lot) she had to be the hottest of the hot…not some fat girl from upstairs.
As I was on the phone panicking, I thought to myself, “I can’t tell her I’m gay, because then I have to tell her the whole truth including #2 and #3 and I don’t want to hurt her feelings.
But in reality, that was the truth that made me feel better. Not yet comfortable with my own sexuality (and processing my own internalized homophobia), I took the easy way out and denied it. I could’ve easily just admitted I was gay, stopped there, and gave her the closure she so desperately wanted (I think I was her first real crush/love).
When I saw that episode of Divorce Court, I realized this strategy is essentially a coping mechanism. People will say anything to make themselves feel better, and it’s easy to justify hurting people’s feelings if it’s simply stating facts. But often, it’s unnecessary. The truth hurts yes, but often times we get a little extra and say things (albeit true) to make ourselves feel better about a situation.
I’ve learned so much about restraint and poise over the last few years and the key starts with knowing your truth. The next time you want to hand someone their ass, ask yourself, “Is this the truth, or the truth that will make me feel better?”
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