Does candour allow you to get away with anything?

Hello everyone. Now my last post has led to a raging argument with so many people writing in to comment on the incident which I had experienced: what then followed was a long argument in the comments section about whether or not such a reaction was to be expected and how one should reaction to a situation like this. Now two readers went out of their way to criticize the way I reacted to this person who had refused to help me in quite a blunt and abrupt manner (I merely walked away) and Winking Doll even went as far as to say, " I appreciate the candour in their replies. You know exactly where you stand with these kind of people. These are folks that I will try to build a relationship with if we do indeed share values and the opportunity arises. My skin is thick enough and ego not so fragile as to wither over their blunt responses. On the other hand, I don't care much for "friends" who are sayang-sayang in front of me, and then for all I know stab me behind my back."

Now I think she has confused two points and I would like to use a food analogy to explain this point to her. When I was in traveling in Sri Lanka, the weather was frightfully hot (hotter than Singapore in fact) and there was a near total absence of air-conditioning once you stepped out of the capital Colombo. I had to buy drinks several times a day to stay hydrated as I was sweating so much - as you cannot drink tap water in Sri Lanka, I would buy either bottled water or soft drinks - the snacks and drinks were so cheap in Sri Lanka anyway that I wouldn't hesitate to try something new, like a local fruit juice. So there was this day when I took a particularly long bus ride and when I had arrived in Kandy, it was already nightfall and I was very tired. I had forgotten that I had not yet finish drinking a bottle of orange juice that was in my bag - I had a shower and gone to bed very early as I was exhausted from the very long journey.

My orange juice in Sri Lanka had gone off in the hot weather.

The next morning, I went out sightseeing and it was another very hot day. I had gotten thirsty by mid-morning and thought about buying another drink when I recalled, hey I think I still have that orange juice from yesterday in my bag! Sure enough, it was still there but when I opened the bottle, there was this fizz of air, of bubbles escaping as if I had just opened a bottle of carbonated soda. I remember thinking, that's odd - but I was so hot and thirsty, I ignored that and tried to drink the orange juice. Oh dear. Bad decision. It had completely gone off - the bubbles should have warned me! I took one mouth full and the taste was completely foul. The orange juice had fermented in the bottle overnight (as it was very hot) and the stench of rotten fruit was overwhelming. I couldn't swallow it - I spat it out immediately as it made me feel sick. It was not drinkable and I had to throw it away. That's right everyone, be careful with food and drink at high temperatures as it goes off very quickly!

What is the point of this story? Let's compare people who are downright rude, nasty and abrupt to the rotten fruit juice - you know it is bad, you can smell it and if you taste it, it will make you feel like throwing up. There's no ambiguity whatsoever, just like the rotten fruit juice - someone who is rude or nasty to you has made it very clear that he has no intention to be nice to you. But what do you do after you realize that someone is as bad as that rotten fruit juice? Would Winking Doll had drunk that rotten fruit juice? Hopefully not, as it would have made her feel very sick in the process. But why would she then think that it would be a good idea to even try to build a relationship with someone like that? Maybe as she claims, "My skin is thick enough and ego not so fragile as to wither over their blunt responses." Okay, but even if she does have a cast iron stomach that can put up with the most acrid rotten fruit juice, the question is why she would choose to drink something like that and by that token put up with people who are blunt and nasty to her. What can be gained by subjecting yourself to people who have no qualms about being totally rude and nasty to you? Just because you can put up with the rudeness isn't a good enough reason to do so.

What do you do when someone is rude or mean to you?

Aah, she goes on to explain that she is wary of fake, insincere people who are nice to you and then stab you in the back when you least expect it. Time for another food analogy methinks. I am a big fan of spicy barbecued chicken - I love chicken satay, chunks of succulent chicken that have been marinated for hours in tangy Malaysian spices before being barbecued. I am also a big fan of the super spicy Peri-Peri chicken at Nandos. I also love to cook so I would often marinate chunks of chicken in my favourite spices before sticking them under the grill. Now I made a stupid mistake a few years ago - I had marinated some chicken in a potent mix of chilli, garlic, ginger, tumeric, black pepper, coriander seeds, nutmeg, cardamon, cumin, soy sauce, lime, vinegar and lemon grass. A few days had passed - I had been so busy at work that I had not had the time to cook my own dinner, so the chicken just sat in my fridge, marinating away and I thought, that's fine, it will absorb even more flavour with each passing day.

Then came the weekend and I finally got the chicken to roast for dinner - I took a sniff and it didn't smell bad at all, but admittedly all I could smell were my pungent Asian spices. The well marinated spicy roast chicken was delicious as usual and within two hours, I was bent over my toilet bowl vomiting my guts out. Oh my goodness. Clearly I had left the raw chicken in the fridge for too long and it had gone off - but I wasn't able to tell because it was so heavily seasoned. I suffered from pretty horrific food poisoning (I'll spare you the details, but you can imagine), like I was so very, very sick. So everyone, always keep track of how long you leave raw meat in the fridge to avoid food poisoning!

I am very fond of satay!

So yes, there can be people who are just like my rotten roast chicken - on the surface, you would be greeted by pleasantries (like the aroma of the spices) but deep down inside, they are rotten and full of malice and getting involved with them could do you a lot of harm. I have met people who are like this rotten roast chicken before - I had a former colleague who was so sweet and polite on the surface but she stabbed me in the back for financial gain. And I never saw it coming - I trusted her, liked her and thought she was such a nice person and then suddenly, bam! She stabbed me in the back, just like that. Kinda like the way I suddenly felt sick and ran to the toilet to throw up after having eaten that delicious (rotten) roast chicken. So yes, I can see why we would all be wary of people like that who are so polite but so toxic at the same time. But then again, something that is clearly bad (like the rotten fruit juice) doesn't make it good just because it is very evident that it is bad: the same principle applies to people who are nasty to us.

Whilst I appreciate candour like Winking Doll's, I do think we should be a lot more discerning about people who are rude, nasty and/or mean to us. Now this is not about whether or not you can stomach insults or put up with rude behaviour - rather, it is whether or not this other person is willing to be a good friend to you. Let's get real here - you cannot possibly expect to get along with everyone and be everyone's best friend. No way. There will be some people who will naturally like you and others who will take a dislike to you. And if someone dislikes you enough to make it clear to you that, "HEY I DON'T LIKE YOU, PISS OFF." Ouch - I am sure we have all come across people like that. You would be pretty darn stupid to ignore a message like that. If you focus on the candour of that message rather than the message itself, then I say, you must be blind. How can you be so oblivious to a message as clear as that?

"Hey I don't like you, piss off!" Oh how honest of you!

So in this case, it is not about how thick your skin is or how much rudeness you are able and willing to put up with, it is more a case of hey, did you not realize that this person does not like you and wants you to piss off? I'm afraid when you encounter such a situation, there can only be one sensible response: walk away and find someone else who isn't as hostile to you. Yes there is a certain honesty and candour when someone goes out of their way to be rude to you, but if someone tells you to go fuck yourself: what do you focus on? The nature of message or the candid nature of the message? What is more important?

Let's look at this in real life: remember this British expatriate by the name of Anton Casey? Well he was simply being candid and honest when he made the remark about poor people on the MRT - so why are so many Singaporeans so angry with him when all he is doing is being candid and honest? Or how about the PRC scholar Sun Xu who got into so much trouble when he said that there were more dogs than humans in Singapore - why, wasn't he simply being honest and candid about his feelings? Why did he get into trouble then? And going back a bit further, I am sure some of you will remember the Wee Shumin elitism controversy - again, wasn't she merely being candid and honest about her feelings? What about a more recent case then: ex British minister David Mellor was caught on tape being extremely rude, insulting a taxi driver - what's wrong? Wasn't Mellor merely being honest and candid about his feelings?

I could go on with more examples of people who have gotten into a lot of trouble over the remarks they have made but my point is simple: in our society, simply being 'honest' or 'candid' doesn't allow you to get away with saying anything you like to anyone you like. There is a price to pay for crossing the lines when you are rude, mean, condescending or inconsiderate to others and these various people in the examples above have been punished for their mistakes: all of them have issued apologies for their behaviour. That is the world we live in - so even if someone like Winking Doll is more than happy to put up with someone like David Mellor, well I have news for you, the rest of the world doesn't think like that. If Winking Doll had been Mellor's taxi driver, she might have turned around and said, "oh what an honest man, I admire his candour. You know you can trust a politician like that, I am sick and tired of politicians who are dishonest but this man, David Mellor - he just said to me, "'who are you to question me?' I don't want to hear from you, shut the fuck up. Smart-arsed little bastard. You sweaty, stupid little shit"  Oh I have so much respect for the man, he is so candid and honest - he should be the next prime minister."

Sounds ludicrous? But that is exactly what Winking Doll is advocating - allowing people to get away with just about anything in the name of 'candour'. How would she like to be at the receiving end of David Mellor's candour then? Do you value candour above everything else or do you draw the line at rudeness? Should we value candour over manners or is that just silly? Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments section below, many thanks for reading.

Where do you draw the line? Anything goes?