Are you for real?

Over the last few days I've been having some rather confronting discussions with Boy about friendship, the nature of friends and how to tell a good friend from the bad.

Boy is a fan of the school of tough love; he'll pretty much always tell it like it is, straight up, no ice or sweeteners thrown in.

I belong to the school of the politically correct. I try and soften things up for people, use every euphemism and platitude in the book rather than tell people the unvarnished truth about themselves, myself or anything.

Basically, I'm the queen of the little white lie.

But I know I'm not alone. I've noticed that in everyone around me as well. Society functions on the platitudinous comments, the euphemisms that pass for politeness. Who wants to hear the truth when the sugar coated white lie is so much easier to swallow.

But it's hard, really hard to make real friends that way. When you can't tell people the truth about yourself, your past, about their new haircut or that they're spending too much...you pretty much can't tell them anything. You can hang out with them, giggle with them over new shopping expeditions but your real self is tucked away somewhere else.

I made a new year's resolution this year to be more real. To speak up more when something bothers me and to tell people what I think during the times when the truth won't be too cruel. So far, it hasn't worked out very well. It's October and I've notched up less than 5 instances of being real to any of my friends.

The thing is, I need real friends. I need someone I can get safely drunk with and cry with over boys with. Or at least someone I can PMS with. I need someone I can be real with.

Maybe I need to buy a dog.