There are conversations I remember not because of what was said, but because of what remained unspoken in the room. Outwardly, everything was friendly. No one raised their voice, no one strongly disagreed, no one left feeling hurt. You might even have said it had been a good conversation. And yet I knew that strange feeling afterwards. Something in me was unsettled, even though everything on the surface had been peaceful. It was only later that I understood that, at times, I had created that peace by leaving part of my own truth out of the conversation. I had agreed even though I felt differently. I had remained silent even though something had touched a nerve. I had softened an answer until hardly anything remained of what I had originally wanted to say. No one had to contend with me. I alone was left with what had never been given a place.
For a long time, I thought of harmony as something entirely positive. I liked people with whom it was possible to speak calmly, I valued consideration, and I found unnecessary conflict exhausting. Fundamentally, that has not changed. I see no particular value in immediately voicing every difference of opinion or turning every irritation into a confrontation. But over time, I began to distinguish between harmony and avoiding conflict. From the outside, the two can look remarkably similar. In both cases, things remain calm. For me, the difference only becomes apparent within. Genuine harmony feels spacious. I can remain myself within it and still meet the other person openly. Harmony that comes from denying myself feels narrower. It requires some part of me to become smaller so that the situation can remain comfortable.
I have often wondered why it can be so difficult to say one simple, honest sentence. ‘I don’t want that.’ ‘I see it differently.’ ‘That hurt me.’ ‘I don’t feel comfortable with that.’ They are not complicated sentences. And yet they can feel more difficult than lengthy explanations designed to avoid saying what we really mean. I know this from myself. As soon as I feared that an honest no might disappoint someone, I would begin searching inwardly for a gentler solution. I explained more than was actually necessary. I qualified my own perception. I looked for wording that was as unlikely as possible to provoke any reaction. At some point, I realised that I was attempting something impossible. I wanted to be honest while also controlling how the other person would respond to my honesty.
That was where I recognised an important connection. For me, honesty does not mean only telling the truth. It also means allowing the other person to have their own reaction to it. As long as I try to prevent every disappointment, irritation or misunderstanding in advance, I am taking responsibility for something I can never fully control. I can choose my words carefully. I can be respectful. I can try not to hurt someone unnecessarily. But I cannot guarantee that my truth will be comfortable for them. At first, this realisation was uncomfortable for me because it meant letting go of something I had long regarded as care. Part of it really was consideration. Another part was my own fear of the moment when someone might not agree with my decision.
This becomes especially clear to me with people who matter to us. It is often easier to say no to a stranger than to someone whose closeness we do not want to risk. The stronger the emotional bond, the more easily honesty becomes entangled with fear of loss. Suddenly, it is no longer just about an opinion or a wish. Beneath it, unconsciously, there may be a much bigger question: Will you still stay close to me if I am not what you need me to be right now? Will you still like me if I disagree? Will I still belong if I draw a boundary? Such questions are rarely spoken aloud, yet I have experienced how profoundly they can influence our behaviour.
I think of situations in which I said yes even though my first inner response had long since said no. The yes came quickly, almost automatically. Only later did the tiredness, resistance or quiet irritation appear. I used to think that these feelings were sometimes a reaction to the other person. With more distance, I became aware that part of them was directed at myself. The other person may not have crossed my boundary at all. I simply had not shown them where it was. Afterwards, I unconsciously expected someone to recognise what I myself had never expressed. There was a strange unfairness in that. I was holding someone responsible for a situation while withholding from them the very information that mattered most.
This realisation changed my understanding of kindness. To me, kindness no longer means causing as little friction as possible. A kind person is allowed to disagree. They are allowed to disappoint. They may turn down an invitation, hold a different opinion or say that something has become too much for them. What matters far more to me is the attitude from which this is done. Honesty can be used harshly when it becomes an excuse for presenting thoughtlessness as authenticity. But it can also be quiet and clear. It does not have to intend harm simply because it does not fulfil someone else’s wishes.
I have also noticed how closely our need for harmony can be tied to the roles we occupy. Perhaps we are known as the understanding one, the person who always helps, the one who never causes any trouble. Such roles can feel pleasant because they bring recognition. At the same time, they can become a silent agreement that no one has ever explicitly made. I then begin to protect an image of myself. If I suddenly say no, set a boundary or openly express what is bothering me, it can almost feel as though I am acting against my own identity. It is not only the other person who has to become accustomed to a new side of me. I have to do so as well.
Perhaps that is precisely why change within relationships can feel so delicate. When someone begins to become more honest, they do not only change themselves. They change a familiar balance. What was once simply available is suddenly being named. Where there was silence, a voice now appears. Where adaptation once kept the peace, difference now becomes visible. I have learned that this transition does not automatically mean a relationship is becoming worse. Often, it is only then that we begin to see what its previous harmony was actually built upon.
To this day, I find this one of the most uncomfortable questions in human relationships: is it really harmony if it can only exist for as long as no one says anything that unsettles the other person? If I have to hold myself back in order to preserve closeness, the closeness may still be visible, but something essential is missing. The other person is not fully meeting me. They are meeting a version of me that I have shaped to fit the relationship as comfortably as possible. And the longer that continues, the harder it can become to recognise which of my responses arise from genuine connection and which arise from the fear of losing that connection.
For me, this is also where the subject touches something deeper in my own perception. Every time I immediately correct an inner impulse before I have even taken it seriously, I learn something about my relationship with myself. If my first response is constantly replaced by the question of what would be more comfortable for others, my own perception slowly begins to lose its weight. I have found in my own experience that this does not affect relationships alone. It can reach far into the rest of life. At some point, I may know very precisely what other people expect of me and surprisingly little about what I myself want.
For me, this certainly does not mean declaring every spontaneous thought to be an absolute truth. My perception can be mistaken. My feelings can arise from old experiences. I can react unfairly, sensitively or with bias. That is precisely why I value self-observation. But there is a great difference between questioning a feeling and immediately pushing it away. I can notice that something has hurt me without instantly claiming that the other person intended to hurt me. I can feel that I do not want something without devaluing what the other person wants. This distinction has helped me to see honesty less as an attack. I can express my reality without declaring it to be the only reality in the room.
As I became more attentive to this, I also noticed how often apparent harmony merely postpones conflict. The conflict I want to avoid today does not always disappear. It simply changes its form. An unspoken no becomes exhaustion. Swallowed anger becomes distance. Many small acts of self-adjustment can eventually turn into an inexplicable coldness. Then you sit opposite someone and wonder why the closeness you once shared has faded, even though there were hardly any open arguments. That, in particular, strikes me as remarkable. Relationships can suffer not only from too much conflict. They can also suffer because too little that is genuine is ever spoken between two people.
I recognise much of this in what occupied me while writing *I – Your Best Liar*. For me, self-manipulation does not reveal itself only in major life decisions or obvious forms of self-deception. It can begin with a smile placed over irritation. With a yes spoken before we have even asked ourselves what we feel. With the words, ‘It’s fine,’ while something within us knows very clearly that it is not fine at all. What fascinates me is that this distortion often seems to have a good reason behind it. We want peace. We do not want to hurt anyone. We want to belong. Only when we look more closely for longer do we begin to recognise the price we sometimes pay for it.
I have also experienced that honesty does not automatically create distance. Quite the opposite. Some relationships have deepened for me precisely because not everything had to remain comfortable. When two people discover that differences can be endured, another kind of trust begins to emerge. I no longer have to keep checking whether my next sentence might endanger the connection. The other person no longer has to guess what lies behind my silence. We can come closer because less performance is needed between us. To me, that kind of closeness feels calmer than harmony that has to be constantly guarded.
Of course, I do not manage this perfectly in every moment. There are still situations in which I understand my own reaction only afterwards, or realise that I said something even though I actually felt something else. I no longer see this as a contradiction of my wish to be honest. I am not completely transparent, even to myself. Much only becomes visible with distance. What has become more important to me is the willingness to notice these small inner shifts at all. Not in order to correct every one of them immediately, but so that I do not lose sight of myself within my relationships.
Perhaps this is now the more beautiful form of harmony for me. Not two people always wanting the same thing, thinking alike or never disappointing one another. But a space in which difference does not immediately have to be experienced as a threat. A space in which a no is allowed to stand beside a yes without automatically becoming rejection. Where closeness does not depend on one person continually holding part of themselves back.
I remember one occasion when I walked home after a long conversation. It had not been perfectly harmonious. We had seen things differently, and something I had said had clearly made the other person think. In the past, that would have preoccupied me. I would have wondered whether I should have expressed myself differently, whether I needed to take something back or explain it afterwards. That evening, it was different. I felt no triumph at having spoken my mind, and no unease because we had not agreed completely. There was only this unfamiliar, quiet sense that I had not abandoned myself during the conversation. And as I continued walking, I found myself thinking that perhaps peace does not always begin where disagreement ends, but where I no longer have to make myself invisible in order to remain close to someone.