The waiting room was full of children waiting for vaccinations. All of them wanted to know the same thing: "Will it hurt?" Most parents replied: "No, it won't." But one family was different. When Michael Leviton put the question to his mother, she said: "Yes, it will" - though she added that it would only hurt a little, and for a short while.

Michael was delighted. He felt lucky to have parents he could trust rather than ones that lied to him. But when he grew older, he found that there were disadvantages to being honest the whole time. Finally, at 29, he decided that he had better desistStop. It comes from a Latin verb meaning to stop standing..

Michael's parents never actually told him he must always tell the truth, but they made it clear in everything they did. His father made a game of trying to predict when someone was about to tell a lie - and he was always right.

When Michael asked him the secret, he replied: "They're afraid that if they say what they really feel, people won't like them. And they'd rather be liked than be honest."

At school, Michael took pride in his honesty. He never pretended to find something interesting if he was bored by it, or to remember someone's name if he had forgotten it. He talked openly about feelings other people would be ashamed of and challenged anyone who braggedBoasted. Someone who boasts a lot is known as a braggart. about things they had not actually done.

What baffledMystified. It derives from an old French word meaning to deceive or make fun of. him and his parents was that no one else behaved like them. "For us," he writes, "it seemed as if people didn't want to really know one another".

As a teenager, he tried to persuade others to change their ways. "I insisted that if we could all read one another's minds and see the truth of others' pain, we'd relate, and all love one another. I couldn't understand why others valued what they called 'privacy'."

But in his twenties, he encountered serious problems. He failed job interviews because he was so open about his shortcomingsA fault or failure to meet a certain standard, typically in a person's character., and struggled to find a girlfriend who did not mind him being honest about hers.

Finally, he fell in love with someone happy to approach life in the same way. "We talked constantly, sharing our most bizarreWeird. It comes from the Italian word bizzarro, meaning angry. feelings, observations and opinions; telling stories from our pasts; feeling known and understood."

The problem was that this made the relationship exhaustingly intense. When it came to a heart-breaking end, Michael decided he must learn to be less honest.

Though it proved a struggle, Michael found his life improved: "I couldn't ignore how much smoother every interaction went, how much happier everyone else seemed... I got piano-playing gigs by refrainingHolding back from. from mentioning that I wasn't a very good piano player."

He came to see honesty as a form of intimacy. "My indiscriminateWithout making a choice. A discriminating person is someone who chooses things very carefully, but "discrimination" is often used to mean treating people unfairly., automatic honesty had meant that I'd tell a personal story the same way to a stranger as I would to my closest friend... Anyone who loved me wanted to see a side that I didn't show others, but I hadn't saved one for them."

And in the same way, he realised, "If I wanted people to be honest with me, I had to earn it."

Yes: To get on with other people, we have to tell small untruths to spare their feelings. Honesty is a virtue, but kindness is a more important one. Nobody wants to be told that their new shoes look ridiculous, or that you will not come to their party because you think it will be boring.

No: A successful society is built on trust. Many of the world's greatest political problems stem from the fact that voters do not believe what their leaders tell them.

Or... It depends on the lies. White lies can be just as important for helping members of society get along. But being dishonest for one's own gain is a different kind of dishonesty - the kind that can ruin governments, societies and countries.