Honesty...really?

Recently, in a conversation with my dear friend B, she narrated an incident which she had seen/heard of, wherein when a wife disclosed her past to her husband, he took it personally and started behaving badly. or something to that effect. but you get the picture. So that led to a discussion on honesty, wherein we differed. According to her, honesty is super integral to relationships- you need to tell everything and then if someone cant handle any of the truth, tough luck! My take was a little more...how should i say, cynical? practical? anyway, my take was that honesty is a highly overrated virtue, and in day to day life, we just cant handle many of the truths which are placed in front of us. I gave her examples of husbands-wives, bestest of friends, sisters even, who despite sharing their whole lives, and all the gory details...will leave certain things out, will lie at certain times.

Don't get me wrong...it's not like im urging the world to lie to all and sundry, nor am i trying to say that the world is an awful place and everyone lies to everyone, so don't trust even the souls closest to you. There are situations when honesty is THE need of the hour, and its one of the most basic ingredients to a good, successful relationship- whichever kind it may be. You cant do without it at all. My point is simply that, dishonesty is a phenomenon which is very natural, and one doesnt really think before tweaking the truth, or withholding certain pieces of info. The reasons for this may be numerous- either to make someone feel nice or to avoid certain unpleasant retorts- its endless really. Some people exaggerate and exaggerate (one of my very dear friends is living proof of that), but would you call them dishonest? There's something very negative about the term, giving it a very "immoral" sort of feel- which i have a problem with.

So while honesty is a virtue, dishonesty is not really a vice. It's a part of who we are, inherently.