Is Honesty Really The Best Policy?

Most of us prefer sugar-coated honesty the majority of the time.

How much of someone’s past, present, or future life do you want to hear about in those first few dates? Our opinions of them, whether we want to continue to get to know them, and if there is a future together, will all be based on these truths. The issue with this is that what may not be a problem down the road, once you decide you already like someone and have got to know them, could be a roadblock in the beginning when you know nothing else about them.

Let’s look at some alternative scenarios:

Imagine if we admitted all our weaknesses and flaws at a job interview, would we get the job? Probably not. However, at an appraisal 12 months down the line, these weaknesses can be discussed and have training or development plans put in place to improve. They are just not such a problem by then.

Imagine if we knew upfront just how much blood, sweat and tears our new home was going to take to make it our own. We wouldn’t have fallen in love with it during that 20-minute viewing on a rainy winter’s day, and would be scared off spending the money, time and effort doing it up.

If someone had told you half the work involved in building your business or career, would you have embarked on it in the first place?

I guess the answer would be “no” to most of the above. So, do you really want someone’s whole life story, warts and all, as soon as you meet them? Truthfully, probably not!

In fact, it would probably put you off immediately if someone were completely open, honest and transparent straight away. It is the very finest line with it all. Tell someone too early, and its game over; tell them too late, and they feel you’ve been dishonest.

We form opinions and impressions of someone within the first 5 seconds of meeting them, using all our senses and intuition all at once. Those opinions are continued, and we can very quickly (in under a minute) decide whether we have chemistry and are attracted to them or not. But have you ever actually got to know someone and changed your mind?

Realising they are funny, kind, caring, thoughtful, genuine, and honest, suddenly they become attractive. The more time you spend with them, the more you get to know them, the more attractive they become. When they then start to reveal their past, or some of their future plans, or things they may be going through at the moment, those things just might not seem to matter anywhere near as much as they would have if they had told you in the first couple of dates.

That’s the great thing about joining Not a Date: not only has everyone been through the application process (so we do the hard work, you don’t have to), it gives you the opportunity to meet people at group events before committing to any one-to-one dates.

If you haven’t committed yet, let's jump on a call and see if we can help.

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