Lying is acceptable when done to protect your life or livelihood, but for most of our lives, most opportunities to tell lies won’t be in situations like that. You shouldn’t lie to friends or romantic partners, because if you can’t communicate with them honestly, they shouldn’t be your friends/partners in the first place. And I’m not going to respect other people lying to me. Instead of teaching men to accept lies (as in your date example), teach them to accept a “no”.
‘if you can’t communicate with them honestly, they shouldn’t be your friends/partners in the first place’
I think that, insofar as this sounds plausible, it doesn’t conflict with what Chris is saying in the OP. It seems perfectly possible for it to be the case that you can (and by and large do) communicate with someone honestly, simultaneously with it being the case that it’s sometimes best to lie to them.
And FWIW, I think that realizing that lying is sometimes the way to go is part and parcel of a mature and able approach to interpersonal relationships. The other view seems to me both simplistic and morally smug. I find the complete lack of argument in your comment quite telling.
When you intentionally misrepresent yourself to a friend or partner, they don’t like you, they like the person you’re pretending to be. If you tolerate their lies, you don’t like them, you’re like the person they’re pretending to be (because you can’t catch their lies all the time). But neither pretended person actually exists. Instead, it’s healthier and cognitively simpler to just be honest and expect* honesty from others, because then if one person doesn’t like what the other is saying, they’re at least getting a more accurate impression of what the other person is like. For example, if you want to have a trusting relationship, you should treat your SO’s words as true, but if you find out that they aren’t, call them out on it.
.* By “expect” I don’t mean “anticipate”, I mean “consider reasonably due”.
Some men will react badly to being turned down for a date. Some women too, but probably more men, so I’ll make this gendered. And also because dealing with someone who won’t take “no” for an answer is a scarier experience with the asker is a man and the person saying “no” is a woman.
Lying is acceptable when done to protect your life or livelihood, but for most of our lives, most opportunities to tell lies won’t be in situations like that. You shouldn’t lie to friends or romantic partners, because if you can’t communicate with them honestly, they shouldn’t be your friends/partners in the first place. And I’m not going to respect other people lying to me. Instead of teaching men to accept lies (as in your date example), teach them to accept a “no”.
‘if you can’t communicate with them honestly, they shouldn’t be your friends/partners in the first place’
I think that, insofar as this sounds plausible, it doesn’t conflict with what Chris is saying in the OP. It seems perfectly possible for it to be the case that you can (and by and large do) communicate with someone honestly, simultaneously with it being the case that it’s sometimes best to lie to them.
And FWIW, I think that realizing that lying is sometimes the way to go is part and parcel of a mature and able approach to interpersonal relationships. The other view seems to me both simplistic and morally smug. I find the complete lack of argument in your comment quite telling.
When you intentionally misrepresent yourself to a friend or partner, they don’t like you, they like the person you’re pretending to be. If you tolerate their lies, you don’t like them, you’re like the person they’re pretending to be (because you can’t catch their lies all the time). But neither pretended person actually exists. Instead, it’s healthier and cognitively simpler to just be honest and expect* honesty from others, because then if one person doesn’t like what the other is saying, they’re at least getting a more accurate impression of what the other person is like. For example, if you want to have a trusting relationship, you should treat your SO’s words as true, but if you find out that they aren’t, call them out on it.
.* By “expect” I don’t mean “anticipate”, I mean “consider reasonably due”.
By “men” you mean ‘people’? Because ISTM in that example it’s a woman that needs teaching to accept a “no”.
So the man is the person accepting the “no”.
OK, I thought you meant the theatre date in the OP.