Of Truth and Tact

I've been thinking recently about tact. An acquaintance of mine recently bought a game and I got to help him try it out. The group we played with typically rates games (0-low, 10-high) after playing them. I chickened out and gave it a 7. It wasn't a horrible game, but it wasn't a great game. I just didn't have the heart to rate it any lower after being with him as he bought the game. To be fair, it wasn't a horrible game, and in the right mood, with the right people, I could enjoy myself occasionally. But in retrospect, it was probably only a 6 or 6.5 game. And at the time I was rating it, I was thinking 4 or 5.

On the flipside, I'm reminded of some of my early college writing. I got involved in doing some opinion writing, and some of my editorials were, well, naive, to be kind. One of my friends got a hold of one of the final copies of a particularly idiotic piece of mine (that didn't have my byline), skimmed it, and promptly pronounced it complete garbage - totally clueless that I had written it. I never had the heart to fill him in on his faux pas. (For the record, I'm not totally convinced my friend was wrong in his judgment regarding the quality of work.)

Somewhere between the two situations is the ability to speak truth kindly. It is good that when I tempted to speak strongly against X, I'm reminded that either they or their close friends may be heavily emotionally vested in X. But I suspect that I hedge a bit too much at key points when more directness would be healthier.

Periodically I wonder how often I unconsciously verbally destroy an ideal that is important to someone, and they merely withdraw rather than contest the point. I'm not really sure I want an answer.

[Cartoon from here]