I was talking to a friend yesterday about a prior conversation she had with a third party who had asked her whether they looked good in a certain outfit.

I don’t remember the exact details – either they asked “does this make me look fat” or “does this look good on me” or something to that affect. She indicated that she affirmed the friend’s appearance although it wasn’t technically true that she was personally impressed. This led to a short conversation about honesty and why it is or is not appropriate to affirm something like this even at the cost of being perfectly honest. It ended with her saying “I consider it a little white lie” and with me saying I didn’t consider it a lie at all, but it left me with an uneasy feeling. Anyone who knows me for longer than 60 seconds knows that I do not tell lies. But it’s more than that – I can not abide the though of anyone believing I’ve told a lie, or that I’m comfortably lying.

Most people feel that the smaller and more inconsequential the lie, the less morally relevant it is. I feel the exact opposite – if I ever do lie to you or anyone else, you can bet your bottom dollar that the whole world was at stake and that I had no viable alternative. The fewer chips in the middle of the table, the less justifyable dishonesty becomes. To lie about something inconsequential is indicative of a full-on absence of a moral compass. If you’ll lie about something irrelevant, you’ll lie about anything.

To me, my word is worth so much that I would not forfeit it for anything short of mortal stakes. I might lie to keep myself or someone I care about safe and healthy, or out of harms way, or out of prison, or to escape a lifetime of suffering. I might lie to someone who threatens me. I can imagine circumstances where I would give up the right to say “I don’t tell lies”, but they would be conditions of absolute extremis. They would be something worth losing that over. It would have to be a circumstance where forfeiting a precious moral claim on which I take great pride is less horrible than the alternative.

Why, then, would I think it’s okay to answer a question such as “Do I look ok in this dress” in the affirmative when I might not actually think someone looks great in the dress? Isn’t that a little tiny lie, the kind I would find most abhorrant?

No, and here’s why.

I spent many years unlearning the practice of isolating words as a means of interpreting verbal communication. My high school girlfriend (whom I haven’t spoken to in years) would affirm, if she were here, that in my younger days I was notoriously literal in how I would speak, and I would assume everyone else was the same. There was no innuendo, no subtlety, no hyperbole, no non-verbal communication; the words you say could and would be held against you each and every time. I must have been insufferable, and I cannot imagine how she tolerated me as long as she did. But since that time, I’ve learned not to hear what people say, but what they are trying to communicate. Like learning a new language, at first I had to go through a deliberate process of repeating their words over and over in my head, asking myself what they might have meant, screening out the least likely candidates, evaluating the remaining possibilities, then choosing what I felt was most likely, hoping I got it right. But now the process is so automated I almost don’t hear the words, I experience what feels like a direct interpretation of the meaning.

So now, when I hear a question along the lines of “Does this dress make me look fat?”, I don’t hear a question at all. I hear a request for value affirmation. If what I hear could be put into words, they would be “Please reasure me that I am valuable person, because I’m feeling insecure right now.”

So answering “Not at all.” is automatic. And I don’t consider it a lie, because I don’t expect them to hear the words I’ve spoken. I expect them to hear what I’ve communicated which was “Yes, of course you are a valuable person.” And that is the truth.

There have been instances where someone who is very familiar and comfortable with me recognizes what just happened and it has gone a couple different ways – in some instances, they appreciated the affirmation because it was exactly what they sought. In others, they said “thanks, but I really need to know”. In those cases, I switched contexts and provided the candid evaluation they wanted. See, if you really are asking me to evaluate your appearance, I will do that for you.

But the important thing to understand is that candor is not required for honest communication. Candor is appropriate when it is solicited, when sufficient familiarity exists, or when it’s required for important decision-making. But it should not be one’s default setting. Questions get asked for different reasons. It took me a while (years) to recognize this. Don’t get me wrong – I’m still very much of the school of thought that if you ask me a question, you’d better be prepared for an honest answer. But it is an achievement of social sophistication to be able to recognize when a question isn’t a question, and when candor should yield to compassion.

I wouldn’t lie to you. I don’t lie to anyone. Reassuring someone that they are valuable and every bit as beautiful and relevant to this universe as everyone else is an act of compassion and friendship. It’s what some folks need sometimes. You can’t expect them to just come out and say it – we all know that soliciting a compliment renders the compliment immediately suspect – so we have to be able to hear between the lines.

It’s not a lie – not even a small one – because they are not asking a real question. They are asking for emotional support. And in affirming, I accommodate that request. Because that’s what friends do.