TRUTH – THE BITTER PILL

Kamene Goro confessed to have slept with 27 men throughout her life. A confession that drove the entire internet insane. Whether it was because of her body count (if its of any relevance to anyone anyway) or the fact that she’s an honest woman, I can’t tell. Critics and cheerleaders alike couldn’t keep her name out of their mouths. I have only one question – and so? It’s her body, and she has autonomy over it. It’s her life too. What I admire most from this bold confession is her honesty – a quality many of us lack in our day to day lives and relationships.

I always quote Oscar Wilde when I talk about honesty. He said, The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Regardless of the circumstances, the situation or dynamics, that’s just the bitter pill about the truth. Many of us keep saying we want the truth over everything but can we really handle it? If you were Kamene’s significant other and were so invested in her body count, would you really be able to handle her truth? And would you, in turn, be able to tell your truth in all its complexity? I highly doubt it, because we are a generation of liars and avoiders who prefer the aesthetics to the nitty gritty details of the picture. No one wants to get their hands dirty so we find the shortest way out of things – carefully edited truths that serve our purposes. A damn shame, if you ask me.

Relationships are work. Communication lines always need to be open in order to build understanding and trust, and for trust to be nurtured, the truth must always be told. For the truth to be told and trust to thrive, we must have the maturity and fortitude to handle the truth in whatever form it comes, and in order to do that we need to understand that life is not lived with Snapchat filters. We cannot keep spinning webs of lies in our relationships and not expect cracks to form. Once that happens, no amount of filling and plastering will keep the impending disaster from happening; it will just delay it. And that disaster is broken trust. Trust is like a mirror, you cannot fix it when it breaks, but you can still see your reflection in the broken pieces. Will you recognize that person staring back at you?