Although honesty is the best policy in general, justice for Pinocchio, because it turns out sometimes lying is the only option. In certain situations, if you didn’t smash the glass and break out an emergency fib, you’d simply be cruel. The secret to pulling it off in a way you can live with, as I’ve just learned, is in the branding.
I was faced with a delicate dilemma: an acquaintance I had unwittingly socialised with in a group messaged me, suggesting a drink one-on-one. There is no way of saying thanks but no thanks to that kind of invitation without causing offence. This person is perfectly nice, it’s not like an evening with them would be an ordeal, but I was pretty confident we had more than covered the totality of our common ground during the group hang. Life’s quite short, isn’t it? I really didn’t want to hurt their feelings, but I also really didn’t want to go. However, backed into a corner, I came to the conclusion I’d have to spend time, money and small talk doing it anyway, because of stupid old politeness.
Then a friend I was wailing to introduced me to the concept of the soft no. It’s a grownup version of the “we’ll see” that our parents used to fob us off with as kids, but more gentle, graceful, less obvious. Sleight of underhand. A trick of the porky pie.
The soft no is not an out-and-out untruth, a complicated story with the potential to trip you up at a later date, it’s nothing like its mean evil twin, the hard no. But it’s also definitely not a yes. It’s vague, slow, kicking it down the road, never firming up a date; shame, this week’s not looking good. After an unknowable number of delays and obfuscations, hold your nerve long enough and you will eventually achieve the soft no. A truly beautiful thing, a universal win-win. Even Jiminy Cricket would sign off on that.
• Polly Hudson is a freelance writer
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