Brutal Truth or White Lie?

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TheSeraphim

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Hello fellow Catholics!

Quick question!
As a Catholic, do we have to be nice and lie to prevent a persons from feeling bad or do we tell him the brutal honest truth?

Example:
Jim is that friend who has no friends and being a Catholic you are called to love everyone. Jim notices that you are the only one giving him time, as you do to everyone else. Jim keeps calling you and hanging out with you. You are obliged to hang out with him at all times. Slowly you realize how little you have in common to the point where you are losing patience. You distance yourself a bit so he can get the hint. He then calls and asks you if he’s bothering you? If I’m annoyed? I say no. I’m not annoyed. It’s pleasant to be with you (it’s not). I took the cross and hung out with him.
  • Thou shall not lie vs love your neighbor as you love yourself
In the long run I am leading Jim on to hang out with me. I slowly find myself having to plan things and hide from him. He notices that and confronts me.

Is it okay to hurt a neighbor in the short run before investing too much time and leading him to think false interest? In the long run he will not be hurt.

On the other hand if everyone does this to him he will feel unloved.

“What you do to the least, you do to me.” -Jesus

What is the balance here? Now am I obliged to tell
Jim everything what I’m doing? My schedule, my plans? If I don’t tell him then suddenly he thinks I’m rejecting him.

The church teaches patience. It also teaches balance and temperance.

Thoughts?
 
Poor Jim, he must have a big problem with rejection, possibly an introvert with little people skills, and does not understand social boundaries. Possibly you could say that you have other friends/committments that you have to meet and spend time with and that you will/can not always be available.

I think, from what you have stated in your post, that he will see anything you say to him as a rejection, however that is his problem not yours.

I will be interested to see what other’s say regarding this issue.
 
Do you meet him regularly, for example, school/college/church/work, and/or how does he come in contact with you during the week, apart from calling you?

How, does he ‘know’ or perceive he is being left out or ask ‘has he done something to offend you’, is he in a position to see you out with other friends or is it the fact that you decline his invitations to hang out?
 
You are NOT “obliged to hang out with him at all times.” You are NOT “obliged to tell Jim everything” that you’re doing. All you are obliged to do is to be nice to him, treat him with respect, and pray for him.
 
agnes_therese said:
You are NOT “obliged to hang out with him at all times.” You are NOT “obliged to tell Jim everything” that you’re doing. All you are obliged to do is to be nice to him, treat him with respect, and pray for him.
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👍 There’s nothing wrong with telling Jim that sometimes you need to do things without him, such as see other friends, visit family, or go out of town. As another poster said, if he sees that as a rejection, that’s his problem.

I’d also suggest two things when you’re hanging out with Jim:
  1. If talking to him is difficult, try going somewhere where you must be quiet, like the movies or a museum. Or go somewhere that will be really loud, like a concert or a sporting event, so that you won’t be able to talk to each other. 🙂
  2. Is Jim Catholic? If he is, or at all interested in the faith, take him to Mass. Maybe if he gets involved in a church community, he’ll make more friends and you won’t have to feel like you need to be with him 24/7.
 
TheSeraphim said:
Hello fellow Catholics!

Quick question!
As a Catholic, do we have to be nice and lie to prevent a persons from feeling bad or do we tell him the brutal honest truth?

Example:
Jim is that friend who has no friends and being a Catholic you are called to love everyone. Jim notices that you are the only one giving him time, as you do to everyone else. Jim keeps calling you and hanging out with you. You are obliged to hang out with him at all times. Slowly you realize how little you have in common to the point where you are losing patience. You distance yourself a bit so he can get the hint. He then calls and asks you if he’s bothering you? If I’m annoyed? I say no. I’m not annoyed. It’s pleasant to be with you (it’s not). I took the cross and hung out with him.
  • Thou shall not lie vs love your neighbor as you love yourself
In the long run I am leading Jim on to hang out with me. I slowly find myself having to plan things and hide from him. He notices that and confronts me.

Is it okay to hurt a neighbor in the short run before investing too much time and leading him to think false interest? In the long run he will not be hurt.

On the other hand if everyone does this to him he will feel unloved.

“What you do to the least, you do to me.” -Jesus

What is the balance here? Now am I obliged to tell
Jim everything what I’m doing? My schedule, my plans? If I don’t tell him then suddenly he thinks I’m rejecting him.

The church teaches patience. It also teaches balance and temperance.

Thoughts?
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If you would feel comfortable with what you are doing, OK, it would be christian.
But the good you are doing does not make you feel good. So, it is no good.
Treat him like an adult not as a handicapped person that he is not. If he was handicapped, you should treat him with the deference demanded in such cases. But he is not. So, why treat him as such?
As you treat him as such, he behaves as such, even not being so…
Your responsibility, not his.
Adults should have the nerve to be confronted with truths, with hard truths…
 
I should point out that the commandment reads “thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.” That’s very different than “thou shalt not lie.”
 
Try this:

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. If you were a needy black hole, would you want someone to tell you the brutal honest truth … or would you want them to treat you like a cross to bear?
 
Rainaldo said:
Try this:

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. If you were a needy black hole, would you want someone to tell you the brutal honest truth … or would you want them to treat you like a cross to bear?
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There’s a middle ground - such as kindly but firmly telling him that yes, there are other people than him in your life and you need to spend one-on-one time with each of them, as well as that you need time alone, but that you’ll do something special with him tomorrow/on the weekend/next month.
 
LilyM said:
There’s a middle ground - such as kindly but firmly telling him that yes, there are other people than him in your life and you need to spend one-on-one time with each of them, as well as that you need time alone, but that you’ll do something special with him tomorrow/on the weekend/next month.
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Aha … but … what if the needy black hole just doesn’t “get it” … because if he is a NBH he already isn’t “getting” something, and you are almost certainly not the first person to “let him down easy” and he still goesn’t “get it”.
 
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