Bluntphobics Anonymous

Can I be blunt with you?

I hate being blunt. I have blunt-phobia.

Being blunt scares the sh*t out of me. I don’t like it all. My blood pressure rises. My skin crawls. I start to feel dizzy–you know, the kind of extremely-hungover-on-vodka-and-cheap-orange-juice type of nausea.

I can be blunt inside my head but not with my outside voice. At least not often. Sure I can think up with all the one-liners and zingers and scarcastic come-backs…but it’s days and weeks and months after-the-fact. In the moment, I smile and wave (and sometimes grit my teeth).

It probably dates back to childhood memories of my mom saying “what will the neighbours think?” At the time, I don’t think I gave a crap what they thought. But now I do; I really, reallly do care what they think.

Sitting down to write this, I even had to get some clarity. What does “blunt” mean anyway?

Some of the definitions I found included: straight forward, extremely honest, insensitive, lacking compassion, saying what you mean (even if it’s offensive), and “no flowery stuff”.

What does “to be blunt” mean to you?

And is it different based on gender? Can men be blunt while women get labelled bitches?

Hey–maybe that’s the answer: maybe I need to channel my testosterone, punch your lights out, so we can shake hands and have a beer.