Your best friend just bought leather pants. She’s been saving up to buy them for a couple of months. She has the Big Unveiling planned next week at a party where a guy she’s interested in getting to know better will be, and she’s hoping the new outfit will catch his eye. A few days before the party, she calls you over to take a look at her outfit.
But when she struts into the living room in her new purchase, twirls happily and says “so what do you think?” you realize the new pants she’s wanted for ages just aren’t flattering.
In fact, they’re so not flattering you think she should wear something that shows her assets instead of emphasizing her flaws. You start to wonder if you’ve both been looking into the same mirror,
So what do you do?
You have some options:
You can lie, figure out she’s grown and knows what she’s doing and what she really looks like. But when she gets to the party and discovers everyone thinks she looks more like sausage in a casing than like Naomi Campbell in doeskin britches, she’s going to wonder about your honesty. Or your eyesight.
You can be brutally honest, and hope the friendship survives. (But how would you feel if someone told you “the way those thighs are rubbing together, you’ll probably need patches before long….”)
You can be gently honest and point her in another direction: “the leather is gorgeous, but I don’t think the silhouette does much for you. What about a leather skirt instead, with your killer boots and a sweater that shows a little cleavage?”
Telling the truth when the truth can hurt is tough—but not telling it might hurt worse in the long run.
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Karen Grigsby Bates is a LA-based correspondent for NPR News and co-author, with Karen Elyse Hudson, of The New Basic Black: Home Training For Modern Times, (Doubleday).
is a Los Angeles-based correspondent for NPR News and co-author, with Karen Elyse Hudson, of The New Basic Black: Home Training For Modern Times (Doubleday).