Someone is not busy. They're just not saying the real thing. And instead of a simple honest "I don't feel like it" or "I'd rather not" — there's this whole performance. Suddenly everyone has a packed schedule, a hundred things to do, a life so overwhelmingly full that one small conversation just couldn't possibly fit.

And I sat with that for a while. Turned it around in my head. Tried to understand why.

Maybe it's kindness, in a weird way? Like, the lie is softer than the truth? But here's the thing — it's not actually softer. Finding out later that someone was just pretending hurts more than a direct answer ever would have. A gentle "no" is a gift compared to a week of "maybe soon" 😕

I'm too young to be cynical about this. I genuinely don't want to become the kind of person who expects dishonesty by default and stops being surprised by it. That sounds exhausting and sad.

But I also can't unsee it now that I've seen it. And it makes me want to be even more direct, even more honest — almost stubbornly so 💛