“I often lied to spare others’ feelings or to make them like me. Most of my directness was by accident. But I got more social capital from pretending it was on purpose, not least because it made people assume my compliments had to be sincere. Julian seemed to trust me. Smart people often did dumb things.”

“I often lied to spare others’ feelings or to make them like me. Most of my directness was by accident. But I got more social capital from pretending it was on purpose, not least because it made people assume my compliments had to be sincere. Julian seemed to trust me. Smart people often did dumb things.”

— Naoise Dolan