Tahsin Khan

The Lie Behind Every ‘Yes’: Why Being Polite Is Making Us Less Kind


A LinkedIn message appears: Mark, a former colleague, is "just checking in to grab coffee sometime."

The same Mark who spent two years sitting ten feet away, never once asking about life beyond deadline updates. Now, he needs "just 30 minutes" to "pick your brain" about industry connections.

I've found the choreography is always the same. The forced small talk at some overpriced café, the practiced casualness as the conversation steers toward who you know at Company X, the subtle pressure to make introductions.

Let’s be real, you’ll likely spend the whole time crafting an exit strategy while nodding along to his plans (sudden onset hamster flu? A family emergency involving your cousin’s goldfish?). The possibilities are endless.

Your thumb moves on autopilot. Tap...tap...tap. “I would love to catch up!”, you type, while rehearsing the calendar conflicts you’ll invent next week.

Now, imagine an alternate scenario. One where your response skips the social padding, making you wince for a moment at how unpolished it feels.

"Hi Mark, I appreciate the invitation, but I’d prefer not to get coffee. We weren't close when we worked together, and I suspect you're only reaching out because you need something from me."

Most of us would rather add another entry to our running list of future fake conflicts than deliver such unvarnished truth. We convince ourselves we're being kind, sparing others from uncomfortable truths.

But, these moments add up.

Every polite excuse and subtle deflection becomes another entry in our personal playbook of avoidance. The question is: what are we avoiding?

The Comfort of “Politeness”

Let's be honest about being dishonest.

While we tell ourselves that politeness protects others' feelings, the real driver isn't consideration - it's fear. We dread the awkward silence, the hurt look, the social consequences of honesty. So we hide behind carefully crafted deflections and well-timed excuses. In our desperate attempts to avoid these moments, we build walls of polite fiction to protect ourselves.

But, what are we protecting ourselves from?

The discomfort of setting boundaries? The fear of being seen as difficult? The awkwardness of admitting that not every professional connection needs to be a friendship?

Politeness isn't kindness. It's armor.

Consider these common scenarios:

Of course, social graces have their place. No one is suggesting we abandon all filters and express every thought that crosses our mind. But there’s a difference between being courteous and falling into reflexive politeness that slips into lying.

Courtesy means acknowledging the humanity in others. It includes holding doors, saying thank you, and being on time. These small acts of consideration oil the machinery of daily life.

Politeness is different. It's when we say 'I'd love to!' while mentally searching for future excuses. It's praising mediocre work instead of offering helpful feedback.

One reflects genuine consideration for others. The other reflects our fear of discomfort. And sometimes, as I would learn, that comfort comes at a devastating cost.

When Politeness Breeds Flakes

Our culture of reflexive politeness has bred an epidemic of unreliability. When fear drives us to polite avoidance, flakiness follows naturally.

We say ‘yes’ to things we don’t want to do. Then, we spend more energy escaping these commitments than it would have taken to decline them honestly. This triggers an exhausting chain reaction - fake enthusiasm, delayed responses, manufactured emergencies, and perpetual rescheduling, until we run out of excuses. Finally, we ghost - the ultimate act of avoidance that leaves both parties knowing the truth but pretending otherwise. Each step feels easier than the simple truth we could have offered at the start.

Our calendars become graveyards of half-hearted commitments, where 'let's grab coffee sometime' has become more greeting than invitation. 'Yes' means 'maybe,' and 'maybe' almost always means 'no.' We've normalized flakiness by dressing it up as social etiquette.

But there's a deeper cost. Each time we say 'yes' to obligations we don't want, we steal opportunities from commitments that matter. A 'yes' only carries weight when we've learned to say 'no.'

Here's the truth: there are no social obligations, only consequences. Every 'yes' we give to avoid awkwardness becomes a future commitment we'll need to dodge.

In a world where everyone is busy avoiding commitments they never wanted to make, genuine availability has become extinct. We mistake politeness for kindness the way we mistake a smile for joy - it's the costume kindness wears when it's too afraid to show up as itself.

In this landscape of perpetual avoidance, follow-through has become extinct, and reliability feels like a superpower.

While Mark's LinkedIn message might seem like a minor annoyance, these patterns of politeness-over-honesty play out in more consequential ways. I learned this lesson first-hand last year, watching a seven-year friendship dissolve over months of polite fiction.

When Politeness Poisons

It began innocently. While discussing a business idea I'd been developing, my friend's eyes lit up. "We should do this together!" he exclaimed. "I've been thinking about this idea myself and there's a lot of potential here." His enthusiasm was contagious, and I welcomed the possibility of partnering with someone I trusted.

I spent weeks crafting briefs, sharing industry research, and creating frameworks to get him up to speed. Each time we met, he'd nod along enthusiastically, promising to dive deeper before our next discussion. But every deadline slipped.

Two-week follow-ups turned into four-week delays. "Sorry, crazy week with my other priorities" became his refrain. Each meeting started with the same apologetic smile, the same promises to be better prepared next time. We repeated the same conversations from weeks ago because he hadn't fully reviewed the materials.

Still, I kept investing.

I created more summaries, scheduled more calls, and believed his polite assurances that he was “definitely still interested in this.” Meanwhile, months slipped by with no progress. The same fundamental questions about our business model remained unanswered while I watched my momentum drain into the void of his perpetual ‘almost ready.’

His politeness - his need to appear engaged while avoiding honest conversation - wasn't protecting our relationship. It was prolonging its decay. Each deflection added another crack to our foundation, until what started as a promising partnership collapsed under the weight of unspoken truths.

Four weeks after our penultimate discussion, he showed up unprepared, still talking about why the industry was exciting. It was as if we were still at square one, not three months into planning. Then he scheduled one last follow-up meeting - his idea, his chosen time - and didn't show up. No message. No explanation. Just silence.

That's when I realized his politeness had been a shield, protecting him from admitting the truth: this was too much work for too little reward.

By prioritizing the appearance of interest over honesty, we both lost. I lost months of momentum and hours of work. He lost credibility. And we lost a friendship that had weathered seven years only to dissolve in a fog of polite lies.

I was grieving not just the end of a friendship, but the way it ended - death by a thousand polite deflections. The realization that years of shared experiences, inside jokes, and late-night conversations weren't enough to earn basic honesty.

That's the insidious nature of politeness. It doesn't just create single moments of inauthenticity. It creates a feedback loop where fear feeds silence and silence breeds more fear. Each polite deflection makes the next honest conversation feel progressively out of reach.

It’s not that we lack courage (though that’s partly true). It’s that we lack language. Most of us weren’t taught how to say “This is harder than I expected and I’m not sure I can commit” without feeling like we’re burning bridges.

Sure, he needed a bit more backbone too (or a spine transplant). But what he needed more was a framework that would allow him to express doubt without affecting our relationship.

Breaking Free from Polite Prison

The path to honesty can take two forms.

The first is direct: 'No, thank you. This isn't a priority for me right now.' This approach works well for those comfortable with straightforward communication (like the truthful response to Mark).

If that level of directness makes you uncomfortable, there's another way. Marshall Rosenberg's Nonviolent Communication framework provides a path forward instead of offering vague platitudes or avoiding difficult conversations:

  1. Observe without judgment
  2. Express feelings
  3. Connect feelings to needs
  4. Make a specific request

Imagine if my friend had expressed his needs more authentically:

"I appreciate all the work you've put into this [observation]. I'm feeling overwhelmed and uncertain [feeling] because I need more time to evaluate if I can fully commit to this venture [need]. Could we pause our planning while I reassess my capacity for this project? [request]."

This response would have:

It sounds simple. But like learning any new language, this way of communicating requires us to rewire decades of habits. We retreat to politeness not because it's optimal, but because it's the only language we have practiced.

Yes, our first attempts will be awkward. We'll fumble over words and question our timing. But what's the alternative? To keep building relationships on the quicksand of polite fiction?

In our desperate attempt to avoid conflict, we've confused politeness with kindness. It's the smile that masks indifference, the promise we never intend to keep.

Politeness preserves appearances. Kindness preserves relationships.

We don't need more politeness. We need the bravery to be kind.


Reflections


A heartfelt gratitude to Alivia Duran, Chris Wong, Mark Connolley-Mendoza, Deepti Chopra, Sondra Yu, and Matthew Argyl whose insights and feedback helped shape this piece.

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