This is a public service announcement to anyone who wants to be my friend and to anyone who already interacts with me in any way.

Please be honest with me.

When you talk to me, be honest. Don't make shit up. I'm an honest person and I will tell you straight to your face the truth about anything you want to know.

Don't make excuses, and don't lie to me. Even if it's a little thing. Don't pretend you did something for one reason when it was a different reason. Don't insult me by thinking that telling me a transparent lie actually fools me. And don't tell yourself it doesn't matter.

If you tell me you're going to do something, do it. If you can't, tell me honestly. Believe me, I'll forgive you if you're honest. Honesty is one wonderful way to come through in principle even if you can't do so in deed. One really great way to piss me off is to pretend it's my fault you couldn't come through. And another wonderful way to destroy any trust we've built up is to pretend you have a noble reason to not do something you think is expected of you, when really you just don't want to admit that you're not willing to help for whatever reason.

If you feel guilty for not helping me build my treehouse, don't tell me you can't help because you hurt your leg. That means "I would if I could," and that's a lie, because you KNOW you just don't want to, and for me that doesn't reflect on you. But when you lie about it, it does reflect on you. I never asked you to help me build my treehouse. But when you came over and gave me a half-assed excuse for not helping, that was a LOT worse than just plain telling me straight up that you didn't feel like it or you weren't interested. Pretending that something is *preventing* your noble little self from helping me gives me a much worse impression than if you never even showed up or mentioned it at all.

If you have a question about something I've done, ask. Don't assign me imaginary attitudes if I haven't expressed them IN WORDS--trust me when I say most of you can't read my signals. Trust me doubly on this if you've found yourself repeatedly misinterpreting my signals.

If you think I did something to you and it seems very unlike me, I probably didn't do it, or at least didn't do it in the spirit that you imagine. So ask before you react to it. Before you confront me as if you know my thoughts. By the end of that chain reaction, your anger has already damaged you, and neutralizing the original spark doesn't erase the scars from when you were burning over some fictional fire. There are plenty of things to get raging mad about without having drama over what other people seem to be thinking when you haven't even asked them what they think.

I am what I am. I say what I mean. If you understood people the way I understand them, you would see that's the case with me. Everyone who is close to me knows this and has been a "victim" of my honesty. Don't assume silence in between the words carries some other message. And do me the courtesy of being what you say you are and saying what you mean. I really hate having to call people out on their deliberate misrepresentation of their thoughts. Yes, I can tell. No, I'm not kidding.

And if I ask YOU to be honest with me, don't try to pretend that you've been doing so all along. Don't try to reverse-accuse me about how horrid it is that I don't trust you. If we're having this conversation, you've already been caught in your lie, so I have no reason to trust you. There is no shame in refusing to trust someone who lies.

If you're paranoid and you're wondering if this rant is about you but you have no idea what it is that you did because you HAVEN'T lied or made shit up or misrepresented yourself, then either it *ISN'T* about you . . . or you're so deluded that you don't even realize you lie all the time.

But if you can think of one or two things you've said to me that weren't true, and you can think of one or two times you've pretended to be something you're not, and you can think of one or two sentences in this entry that made you think "Oh shit, I've done that," then please just take the advice in this entry and apply it to yourself. Don't ask me if I meant you, because if this speaks to you, then I do mean you.

Stop making shit up, because it isn't nice to lie and furthermore I can tell when you're doing it. Examine your anger and frustration: Am I really angry about this, or am I just pissed that I'm not getting what I want? Is someone else really to blame for my annoyance or is it really my own damn fault? Is SWANKIVY causing me to be angry, or am I pissed off because she said something about me that I don't want to admit and she's RIGHT?

In other words, if you're worried I'm talking to you, then I probably am, even if *I* don't even know it.

So, when you talk to me, quit pulling things out of your ass that you haven't thought through and expecting me to understand or believe. Further defending a theory that isn't based on anything just makes you look irrational. Don't try to impress me. Don't pretend to know things you don't know and get pissed off when I know more about them than you do and call you on it.

And listen to me when I speak and apply what I say, because I fucking meant it.