We can't handle the truth, none of us can. If you mistake that bit of truth for an insult, that says something about your (limited) tolerance for acknowledging your (many, obvious) flaws.

But like a good joke, the truth depends on tone. If you're at all uncomfortable with flatly stating the facts, you're bound to confuse and scare people. When spoken by the jittery, the needy, the confused and the bitter, the truth is encountered as a ploy, a blunt weapon or a cry for help. Yet with a confident, self-possessed delivery, the truth sounds more like a bit of helpful information, paired with an unexpected invitation to cast aside pretense and speak from the soul.

With a relaxed tone and a little eye contact, the truth can be daring, even intoxicating. Hmm, your words are strangely factual and accurate. Are you trying to flirt with me? Is that the truth in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?

Truthiness becomes him

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There was a time when T.G.I. Friday's wouldn't have gone so far, a time when our proud land could hold its head high as it dunked big breaded slabs of mozzarella and battered hunks of cream-cheese-filled jalapeños into the deep fryer. We were once a simple people, a people who merely wanted enormous platters of deep-fried food to nibble on before our actual meals -- gargantuan platters of deep-fried food -- arrived. That was before we needed everything, all at once -- a heady mix of sugar, salt, oil and extra dipping sauce, a volatile blend of cuisines from the Deep South, China and Italy, coming to rest at last in the land of "Bites," that deceptive territory where a 1,500-calorie, 45-fat-gram gut bomb is disguised as a satisfying but delicate little morsel for the grazing gourmand. Once, not so long ago, we may have had a hankering for a hunk of deep-fried cheese, but did we long for an explosive amalgam of pot stickers, barbecue pork and pasta? No. We had more restraint, more self-respect, more dignity than that.

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