Would A Real Gentleman Lie? (1)
ADEKANMI OTEDOLA-OLUSANYA A gentleman as we know is to say the least a man with a good sense of etiquette. Etiquette as we know entails politeness, consideration for others poise and social grace. While some may argue that lies could be told while still maintaining politeness and poise, can a man who lies to the hurt of his victims be said to be considerate of them and socially graceful?
Would a true gentleman falsify his age to his employer, lie to his wife about his income or whereabouts and lie to clients about his achievements? Would a gentleman lie to a lady about his plans for her only to break her heart in the end?
As a pentecostal preacher I have people come to me regularly to discuss personal matters. A woman came to my office not too long ago to discuss a challenge she had in her marriage. Apparently her husband had been lying to her about the state of accounts in a company they both ran together. In another instance, a lady relayed a story to me a while ago about how a youth corper who was married arrived late at the orientation camp. When asked by the official why she reported late, she lied somewhere along the lines of her husband not releasing her on time. Then the NYSC official decided to call the husband of this youth corper only to discover that she was lying. She had left her home early enough but decided to spend some time with another man. Unimpressed by her actions her husband told her not to bother coming back to her matrimonial home after her youth service!
Lies destroy relationships and a gentleman is not known to be one who goes about making relationships only to destroy them.
We live in a society today bedeviled by a preponderance of lies. Politicians lie. Employees lie to their employers about even things as little as the time of resumption at work. Students lie to their parents about their school result and prices of books. Athletes, employees and even potential employees lie about their ages. Lawyers lie. Artisans lie. Almost everybody lies.
Most times we lie in certain situations because we envisage that the repacautions of honesty when we tell the truth would be unrewarding. I want to share this poignant example with you. While at the University of Lagos I had a girlfriend after a while I became unfaithful to my girlfriend with another girl. Not that I was having sex with this other girl or my girlfriend, but I had foreplay with both of them. Prior to this time, I never thought I could be unfaithful to a girl. I had always been and still am angered by tales of unfaithfulness and infidelity. My eventual unfaithfulness was so shocking and alien to me that I decided to come clean about it to my girlfriend. After telling her about my unfaithfulness one evening at school, I was shocked by the eventual result. While I did not expect her to do anything crazy or get physical, and she didn’t, she told me that few days before my confession, she had told an admirer of hers who asked about me that I was just a friend. Thus she too was quite ‘unfaithful’. What I learnt from the whole episode is that my honesty provoked her to be honest about things she kept secret and may have continued to keep secret. Honesty provokes honesty. The deep calls unto the deep. If you are honest with people it will make them become honest with you as well. There may be one or two exceptions but ultimately you would not lose out. Secondly from that experience I had with my ex-girlfriend it was clear to me that honesty does not kill, honesty heals. My ex-girlfriend is married today nevertheless we relate well and have a lot of mutual respect for each other. If I had lies to my girlfriend, she would have eventually discovered and it would have led to a messier situation.
She would have also lost respect for me. It would pay us to realize that a lot of the things we fear that dishonesty would bring to us will never happen. Even if some of them eventually do happen, honesty would still pay off at the end of the day. Dishonesty is needless as all the things we hide with dishonesty would be revealed with time and cannot be uncovered forever.
As I continue with part two of this topic next week I encourage you to send in your comments and questions as I intend to include them in next week’s write up. To all the gentlemen I say be truthful, remain truthful and remain blessed. Have a great weekend.