To be completely honest within this context, one must also be honest with one’s motivations for “being honest” in the first place.

“Being honest” does not necessitate conveying any messages to anyone else. There is always a motivation for the information one shares. To “be honest,” one must be aware of why they are compelled to share that information and what they seek to accomplish by sharing that information.

For example, to “be honest” about telling someone they’re fat and ugly isn’t actually “being honest” beyond informing the other person of what one’s personal biases are. Delivering information in a callously insensitive manner implies that the honesty of their intent is emotional manipulation.

To be completely and transparently honest within such a context, one should qualify their opinion by being honest about their biases. “I’m very biased toward a person’s aesthetics and react viscerally to the condition someone of being overweight due to unresolved personal issues, and because I’ve been conditioned to define beauty within a shallow, commercialized, sanitized, and two-dimensional context, therefore I interpret your physicality as fat and ugly.”

No one ever goes to such lengths to explain their biases. Most people who indulge in the “honest” expressions of their biases just cut to the conclusion, and that’s much more hurtful to the feelings of others. The consequence of “failing to care” about the emotions of others in such a context demonstrates one does care about the other person’s feelings, not in a productive or supportive way but rather in a destructive way. They intend to create harm deliberately, which implies “caring” about other’s feelings.

They are not sharing their honest opinion in such a context but conveying information to hurt the feelings of others. Within such a context, “being honest” necessitates being forthcoming about the nature of their opinion and why they share it. In either case, one does not escape “caring” about other’s feelings while implying they care more about escaping the consequences of their impact on that person’s feelings.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone declare, “I’ve got personal issues to resolve; therefore, I’m going to use you as my vessel for working them out to make myself feel better by making you feel worse about yourself.”

That would be an example of a bully “being honest” (for a change).

Cases outside the context of an abuser/victim dynamic can have a significant impact on the feelings of others, such as informing someone of the passing of a loved one. No matter how one delivers that information, the other person’s feelings will be impacted.

One’s intentions are just as crucial to sharing information within this context as in the previous example.

To be honest with one’s intentions, in this case, means understanding how one’s information is delivered impacts the receiver’s ability to parse that information fully and accurately. Ensuring the other party successfully understands the message conveyed within its complete context, some level of awareness and sensitivity to their emotions is crucial to the success of their information delivery efforts.

Failing to consider the emotional impact of the information conveyed implies that one’s intentions are less focused on knowledge transfer than on impacting the recipient’s emotional state.

In both cases, these are examples in which one does not escape the consequences of their regard toward the feelings of others in the information-sharing process.

Emotion is a component within an information-sharing context, even in benign situations such as small talk. “It’s a beautiful day today.” This may superficially seem like an unemotional example of innocuous small talk, but the reactions it can engender carry an emotional component within it. The emotions are not as pronounced as in the previous examples, but they exist. One feels better by being reminded of a pleasant experience, just as they would feel something if the day were not beautiful (which, in and of itself, is an emotionally charged word due to its subjective nature).

Further stripping emotion from the dynamic of information-sharing by limiting interaction to a functional level, such as a transaction, still contains an emotional element because humans are emotional beings. For example, “Your McSappy Meal is $5.99” can engender an emotion in the recipient who feels overcharged.

“One plus one equals two.” — “Can you prove that?” or “Do you think I’m too stupid to know that?” or “I’m not a friggin’ child in elementary school. Can’t you provide a better analogy?”

Being honest means being honest about the nature of the care demonstrated toward the feelings of the person with whom they share their information. To care about the feelings of others often implies enough sensitivity toward their emotional state to minimize a potential disturbance, but that’s not the complete spectrum of caring about the feelings of others. Far too many people “care” so much about how others feel that they devote significant energy toward ensuring others feel worse than they do.

Some people “care” so much about other’s feelings that they make a point of being utterly dishonest with themselves while sharing information intended to create harm or incite conflict while escaping the consequences of doing so through a mask of innocence they can declare as “being honest.”

All information shared between people implies an emotional dynamic within its conveyance, either strictly by the content or when augmented by the messenger’s intentions. There is no escape from feelings in communication, while “being honest” includes acknowledging the emotional component of their messages and the impact on the receiver.