The phrase that made me want to punch a woman in the face

Two women are sitting in a cafe after school drop off. What happened next had Deirdre Macken raging. Picture: istock

Two women are sitting in a cafe after school drop off. The topic du jour is holidays. After they’d spoken about how crowds might ruin their Japanese ski holiday and how one would need new snow boots, I heard the phrase that is as frightening as a siren outside the front door: “I need to speak my truth on something.”

Oh yeah, her friend was in for a bollocking.

The truth teller took a melancholic breath and began slowly, “Joe is not behaving …” I didn’t want to hear the rest. Something about Joe, who I think is the friend’s son and the impact he’s having on Oscar, who I think is truthteller’s son and something about how her friend doesn’t do enough or, maybe does too much. I really didn’t want to hear it, if only because hearing it was giving it an audience it didn’t deserve.

Her friend took it well. I wouldn’t have. I wanted to punch her. Well, I wouldn’t really have punched her but I would have liked the feeling if I had. Instead, I quaffed the coffee and walked away with that ragey feeling in the gut – a feeling that means you need to find out why.

What does this phrase mean?

It’s popular. You hear it when celebrities give interviews. It’s around social media a lot. I think women use it more than men. But what’s the person saying?

Obviously, they think their truth is important, so important that others should hear it. An opinion with a drum roll, if you like. They also say they “need” to speak their truth not that they want to or would like to. The fact that they identify it as a need pressures the recipient of said truth to listen (if they are polite). Note, they haven’t asked the other person if they would like to hear their truth/opinion. This is all about the truth that tellers need.

It’s crafted as the opening line to a difficult conversation. But they aren’t really opening a conversation.

A truth is proclaimed, not debated. And it isn’t meant to be conversational anyway. In practice, it’s the opening to a cruel comment, designed to make the truth teller seem virtuous and the recipient feel smaller. It’s a Trojan horse to hurt.

In some cases, it can be used to disguise anecdote as fact. This ruse became popular on The Oprah Winfrey Show, where guests would tell their truth about how their son became autistic or how their serum reversed ageing and the real truth, the science-y truth, was silenced because your personal truth always trumps the truth.

The other thing that makes this punchable is the fact that they think their truth is not just important to them but worthwhile as an instruction to others. Has anyone given them that impression? Has anyone said to them, “you need to tell me your truth on this”? Where did they get this idea that telling their truth was a noble exercise that would make the world (and their friends) better for it?

Truth telling has a short but meaningful history. Its modern origins were in the geopolitical scene where it was used to expose historic injustices, racist empires. Nelson Mandela stuff. Then it went on Oprah and now it’s cafe conversation, as important as new snow boots.

Grandiose. Self-satisfied. Entitled. (I’m just punching words out here). Mean. That woman was being mean to her friend. But what could her friend have said? Maybe she could have said, “you may need to speak your truth but I don’t need to hear your truth”. Or she just could have punched her.

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