Mean but True
@DaddyOfTheRose (2934)
United States
March 31, 2008 2:14pm CST
Have you ever heard someone, being mean or petty, using a phrase as "It's not mean if it's true" as if it somehow laundered their spitefulness. As if anything can be said if it is 'true' without their being some subjectiveness in the method or intent of delivery.
For example, one may be fat.. but there is seldom a reason other than meanness to say so to a person. At other times, pointing out what is true is prideful or vain. "I am smarter than you." "I am stronger than you." "I have more friends than you."
It seems to me, that sometimes, the meanest things you can say to a person involve attacking them with a hurtful truth.
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Do you have any plithy comebacks for "It's not mean if it's true?"
Do you know anyone who acts in this way, a hurtful gossip who feigns that they are 'not mean' because they are only saying what is true?
5 responses
@sherrylwatts (326)
• United States
31 Mar 08
Why not just say - true or not, it's still mean. If you said to them they are rude, they would think that is mean, but its still true - LOL. I agree that sometimes the meanest things that are said have a grain of truth in them. That is what makes them all the worst. Not everything that is true needs to be said out loud.
1 person likes this
@DaddyOfTheRose (2934)
• United States
21 Apr 08
Yes, meanness with a grain of truth is the most cutting.
@beautyqueen26 (16030)
• United States
19 Jun 08
What do those people say about tactfulness?
Or compassion? Or milk of human kindness?
I wonder if they wouldn't benefit from my
favorite saying, "Hair of the dog!"
I don't have to spell that one out.
If someone is being mean,then they are
doing it because they want to inflict pain.
You know how to handle a biting dog?
Just reach down and grab a big old handful
of hair and yank it out.
Do that once to one of these "truth tellers"
and they'll mend their ways quick.
Give them a bit of their mean medicine,
point out their flaws and see how they like it!
@DaddyOfTheRose (2934)
• United States
8 Jul 08
Is that where that saying comes from? I hadn't heard it explained in that way.
@ersmommy1 (12588)
• United States
31 Mar 08
Yes I have heard this. It always sounds to me like an excuse for someone to say cruel things to another. Like justifying it makes it ok. It can be mean! Even when it is true.
@owatagoosiam (751)
• United States
31 Mar 08
If what is true cannot be mean, then a lie cannot be kind. People tell lies in order to spare another's feelings, which would be kindness.
Another approach might be that mean is the opposite of kind and if the person were kind, they would have seen no purpose in saying such a thing at all.
Plithy comebacks are not my forte, anyone else?
