B. came into my condo last night and wanted to talk. I don’t have much experience with women, but I do know it’s bad news when a woman wants to talk. My stomach was rumbling again. I was thinking that maybe some people are meant to be alone. If I didn’t care what other people thought, I’d go out of my way to avoid people. In fact, B. was telling me the other night that if I lived during Jane Austen’s time, I could have gotten a job as a hermit. That’s right. A rich person might have hired me to live in the little hermitage on their estate. I assume all I’d have to do is let my hair grow long and maybe roll around in the mud and thrash myself a couple times a day with a whip, and I’d get free room and board.

Anyway, B. wanted to talk last night about telling the truth. She laid out her philosophy of “radical honesty” for me. She said that people in relationships are afraid of hurting each other’s feelings, so they don’t tell the truth. This ends up hurting both people. If I understand B. correctly, the person who is withholding honesty actually ends up being hurt more because that person bottles up feelings, becomes stressed, and channels that stress into destructive outlets. If neither person in a relationship is being honest, both people end up repressing their emotions, and it’s all caused by fear and the lack of trust. And the foundation of any relationship should be trust and love.

I said this is all fine and good, but how does it relate to us?

She said she didn’t think I was being honest with her. She could sense that I was bottling up something. Of course she’s right. What choice do I have but to bottle up everything?

I told her that I wasn’t bottling anything up. I said I was perfectly happy with the way things were going, and I’ve never lied to her. I don’t think she believed me, but she said she did. You know why I don’t think she believed me? She stomped out without kissing me goodnight.