Our obligation to the truth is one of the oldest ethical questions, says Eleanor Gordon-Smith. In this situation the person who might need honesty the most is you

Recently I moved to a new city. I’ve met some lovely people, though it’s hard past a certain age to make new close friends, rather than just friendly acquaintances. However, there is one person who I have become close friends with over the past year. When she introduced me to her wider, fairly new social group I was made to feel unwelcome and uncomfortable by them. My friend seems oblivious to this and keeps inviting me to join them on social outings. Should I explain to her that I would like to be her friend only, and risk causing a drama, or just keep quiet and hope she doesn’t perceive my distance as being flaky or uninterested in her friendship?

It’s one of the oldest ethical questions: how much do I really need to tell the truth about? If you’re frank with this new friend, and you tell her you can’t stand the company she keeps, you risk alienating her and losing her as well as them. But if you’re not honest enough, and just mysteriously have to wash your hair every time they hang out, you risk seeming anti-social and ungrateful for the invitation. It’s a social quagmire, right after you relocated, when what you probably want most is solid ground.

Here’s a question that might help: do you owe anyone the truth here? Her, or for that matter, yourself?

Some ethicists take our obligations to the truth very seriously, in which case this isn’t a pragmatic question about how to keep your friendship, it’s not even a question. You just have to tell the truth. Could this be the situation?

Let’s start with whether you owe her the truth. Usually your gut knows, but here are some thoughts to get it metabolising the question. What was it about them that made you uncomfortable? Were they harmful in some way, that they’ll keep being until someone calls them out? Rude, sexist, racist? Did they do something you think is genuinely morally objectionable, or was it just that they like beer and you like wine and cheese?

It’s OK for people not to get on. We all have facets of ourselves that we rotate into different configurations like a Rubik cube depending on what the occasion is and who we’re around. Your friend, if she’s a grown-up human, already understands that. That means that if it isn’t a serious moral issue you need to speak up about, you can subtly communicate “I like you, but not them” in a less awkward way than a sit-down, out-loud conversation. You’re not introducing her to a brand new idea. She’ll get it. And doing that doesn’t need to be flaky. Real friendship lives in the gesture; the sustained attention we pay each other when we think life goes better with the other person around. You can find your own ways of showing her that.

But what if there’s a truth you owe yourself? I wonder whether you’re privately worried about how much you really know this person, if she likes people who abrade you so much. Maybe her failure to notice your discomfort made you worry that she’s not as thoughtful of you as you are of her.

I think it would help to be as honest with yourself as possible about exactly what made you uncomfortable. Friendship matters. Finding people we love and hanging on to them may be the only thing that matters. It can be hard to acknowledge the difference between “good company” and “a real friend”. If you’re secretly worried that’s what’s going on, really ask the question of yourself.

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