There is a word of which a lot of people are afraid: Honesty. Being honest, to me, is one of the greatest feelings in the entire world.

I always tell people that whenever you lie, you have to remember that lie. A lie has so many levels to it, and you have to remember them all when you say a lie — where you were, to whom you said that lie, the name of the person you were supposedly with or to whom you were talking. You have to create a whole story.

When you lie, you usually leave all sorts of loopholes. You always forget at least one detail. If people are really paying attention, they can easily catch you in a lie.

Being honest is one of the hardest things for people to do, especially when it comes to being honest with ourselves. There are times, particularly when you’re dating, that you need to be 100% honest both with yourself and with the person you’re dating in situations where it is not easy to be that honest.

Say you’re dating someone who wants three kids and you don’t want to have any kids. Because you are so intoxicated by her beauty, instead of being 100% honest about that you say, “You know, I think I could have kids. I really do think I might want kids.”

You have to be 100% honest at all times with yourself, because otherwise it’s going to come back and bite you in the ass. Being honest is very liberating because the more honest you are, the more honest people are going to be with you. When you have this kind of mutual honesty between you, you don’t get into nearly as many arguments.

Say your partner tells you that he wants to move out to the country, and even though you love living in the city you say that you would be happy to move to the country. When you inevitably stall about making the move, it will end up in an argument between you.

Your partner will say, “You told me you wanted to move to the country, and here we are still living in the city.” If you are (and were) being honest with yourself, you knew all along that you didn’t want to move to the country.

The only reason you said you did is that you fell in love with your partner. Instead of being honest with them and allowing them to have their dream, you lied.

Being 100% honest is really tough sometimes, because when you meet someone you think is so amazing and fantastic you really want to want the same things they do. So we will tell a little white lie, and we lie to ourselves in the process.

Then that white lie ends up putting us in a situation where we have to confront that dishonesty with ourselves. That’s where you get into a mess. It’s really important in life to be really clear about what we want.

How many kids do you truly want? There is a big difference between having one kid and having three (and an even bigger difference between having any number of kids and having no kids).

Where do you want to live? Do you want to live in the country or do you want to live in the city?

How often do you like to have sex? Sex is something you have to be this honest about too.

How many people who like to have sex four times a week get involved with someone who only likes to have sex once a week, and tell themselves they are okay with only having sex once a week. They tell themselves that it doesn’t matter.

The truth is that it does matter. I’ve been in a relationship with a person who liked to have sex a lot less than I do, and it was not okay (and mattered a lot!).

We make all sorts of compromises like this when we go into a relationship because we think to ourselves that all our our needs and desires are never going to be met in any relationship. After all, there is no ‘perfect’ partner, right?

The truth is, though, that if you listed all your needs and wants and desires, it is not that many things. You need to be on the same page with your partner in so many different ways. If you’re not, then you will find yourself in situations where you have to accept things you never wanted.