I acknowledge that all lies are going to make things more difficult in the long run while making things easier in the short run. I would like to point out that

I acknowledge that all lies are going to make things more difficult in the long run while making things easier in the short run. I would like to point out that sometimes things need to be easier in the short run though. In code terms this is something like technical debt. Getting back to the example. If there is some combination of not being close enough, (in the example, lets say just started dating) and insecurities running too high, then they won't necessarily trust your reasoning. They might just feel like you are attacking them, or that you are trying to cover for not reacting fast enough. The end result is that they now feel ugly and like their date hates them. This won't make their body image issues any better. While I've not dated anyone with that level of insecurity, I've been friends with a some, though none of them had body image issues specifically. In my experience they have to both trust you quite a bit, and also be ready to confront their own insecurities. I've tried to speak my mind clearly to one friend who evidently weren't ready to process their insecurities, and in the end it just seemed to make them feel bad and also hurt our friendship. They seemed to feel like I was attacking them and making excuses in a manner similar to what I talked about in the example. I've had some level of success with another friend, but they had actually expressed self-awareness and a desire to change. My current policy is to keep away from people's insecurities unless they express a desire to change or ask me to be brutally honest. I could choose to only let people into my life that don't need me to route around their insecurities. However, I do want to be available to people who need emotional support, which means occasionally placing myself in a position where I need to be careful with people. My actual weapon of choice here is to re-frame the situation, because I'm pretty terrible at lying convincingly and also don't enjoy doing it. An example of a re-frame is the "you look beautiful" in my first post. However, re-frames are also a stop-gap measure as other people won't do such re-frames on their own. What I am doing is not technically deception, but I don't feel like the sort of deception that white lies are composed of has significantly worse side effects. They are both just a way to push the issue down the road. Furthermore, coming up with re-frames is a moderately difficult skill that I have specifically cultivated, and I think white lies are easier to do "untrained". Thus, if someone is put on the spot, I'd prefer if they didn't write off white lies just because they fit the definition of lie. As far as your comments on doing myself dirty. Guilty as charged, I certainly have work to do on that front.