Honesty itself is not inherently wrong. In fact, honesty is very important in life. But brutally honest people are often more focused on the brutality part of their brutal honesty, and that’s where problems arise. It’s usually a good sign that the person is not that self-aware if they take pride in being brutally honest. Otherwise, they would consider whether their choice of words is actually getting their message across.
The reason being, is that people on the receiving end of someone’s brutal honesty aren’t likely to take on board anything that’s being said because they’ll likely be feeling angry and defensive. The person being honest may be completely reasonable and justified in their opinion, but it goes unheard because the one on the receiving end is busy being angry.
The truth is that “brutal honesty” often says more about the speaker than the words they speak, including these 7 things.
1. They may lack awareness, either of social cues or emotionally.
As Dr. Jonice Webb writes, some brutally honest people may not be aware that they are doing harm. This may be because they lack emotional intelligence, or they have a difficult time reading social cues or calibrating their tone for the conversation. It may not be that they are trying to be rude; they just aren’t able to read the social situation.
Some neurodivergent people, such as those who are autistic, ADHD, or both (AuDHD), may fall into this group because being honest and direct is their natural way of communicating. And there is nothing wrong with that. However, there are times when it is important to learn that not everything we think needs to be said out loud.
Personally, this was something I chose to learn as an autistic person who struggled with neurotypical social conventions. I did not realize that my social processes, the way I communicated, and the way I received information were so different from others.
I was often interpreted as offensive and off-putting because I just didn’t understand a lot of the social cues that were being thrown. I made a lot of mistakes and was unnecessarily rude on several occasions. Self-help books, therapy, and practice allowed me to understand and use neurotypical communication, though I’ll never be “perfect” at it by neurotypical standards. And that’s ok.
2. They are often avoiding vulnerability of their own.
Psychology Today informs us that brutal honesty can serve as a shield to deflect self-examination. It’s much easier to keep people at a distance if you make them angry at you. A brutally honest person may default to speaking offensively, not because they genuinely want to hurt someone, but because they’ve learned it’s an excellent way to keep other people from getting too close.
They may still be craving closeness, however. After all, they are in a position to give a brutally honest opinion, which implies that they are most likely at least an acquaintance. It’s a matter of the person taking the approach of “I’ll hurt you and push you away before you can know me and reject me.”
3. They often confuse cynicism with realism.
Isn’t it interesting how brutal honesty is almost always negative? That’s because brutality is inherently a negative thing. It’s too much. People often interpret and speak through the lens through which they see the world. Brutally honest people are often cynical people expressing their opinion through the negative bias of their cynicism.
In reality, not everything is terrible, and the world isn’t always a complete dumpster fire. Is there plenty of ugliness in the world? Absolutely. But if you’re giving someone advice or an opinion, there is no great reason to make it worse than it needs to be by attacking the person in the process.
The truth is that you can be realistically and diplomatically honest without being hurtful or negative, but you have to be self-aware enough to tell the difference.
4. They may be coming from a place of ego and self-importance.
Self-important, egocentric people love to dish out advice because they just know that they know better than other people. They typically aren’t concerned with how they deliver their message because it’s the other person’s fault if they feel offended. They don’t necessarily care whether or not the listener understands their message, so long as they get to feel important by delivering it.
Naturally, these people are “brutally honest” because they just don’t see the need to be anything other than that. After all, they will rationalize it as your fault for not accepting that they know best, including how to deliver their message. Giving advice in this fashion feeds their ego and self-importance.
5. They may just be bullies.
The thing about brutal honesty is that it provides a dishonest person a convenient smokescreen. A bully may give brutal advice not because they want to help you or think they’re helping you, but to tear you down instead. Instead of just giving some advice, they may also be pairing it with insults to make you feel bad about yourself.
A good sign of a bully is someone who insists on making personal attacks while giving their brutally honest advice. For example, “If you were smarter, you would know that…” or “I can’t believe that you would be so stupid to think…”
Bullies often revel in their brutality, as well. They may see it as a good thing that they can hurt feelings because “snowflakes are just too sensitive nowadays!”
6. They often lack self-awareness and self-examination.
Self-awareness and self-examination should eventually tell you that brutal honesty isn’t the most effective way of delivering a message, most of the time. In fact, if a brutally honest person goes back and looks at how many times their advice was followed, it’s likely that it will be less than they think.
And they would know that if they stopped to take a moment to think about how they felt when people gave them brutally honest advice. But these people often lack self-awareness. Granted, maybe they are a person who thrives on that kind of advice, so that’s why they give it. Still, if you’re trying to help someone, understanding how they can best receive a message is a pretty important factor if you genuinely want to help.
7. They don’t take responsibility for their words.
There are some who use “brutal honesty” as a means to avoid responsibility for their words. After all, it must be your fault if you can’t handle the truth! In reality, you could likely have handled the truth, and handled it much easier if it had been given in a way that wasn’t offensive. But the brutally honest person usually isn’t too concerned with that.
Instead, they will completely dismiss your feelings about how they delivered the message, focusing on how you just need to toughen up and handle it. It’s for your own good, after all!
More honesty, and less brutality…
Honesty doesn’t have to be brutal. It can be tactful, given in a way that is pointed but not designed to tear the other person down. Of course, giving advice in a tactful way is a skill that needs to be developed and practiced. It’s not easy to straddle the line if you’re not used to balancing the way how other people may feel about it.
The easiest way to go about it is to avoid insults and direct “you” language.
Another good way to go about it, if you’re not a socially adept person, is instead phrase the advice through the lens of what you would do in the situation. Instead of saying, “You should…” you would instead be saying, “I would do this and this is the reason why…” You’re less likely to be interpreted as offensive by the other person if you’re talking about yourself, instead.
