Living up to your username today I see. I get it. Everyone needs to rant to an understanding party sometimes.

I find it helps to separate intentionally harmful lies from the “social niceties” that are required to grease the wheels of conversation in my head. I’m falsely representing what’s happening yes, but it’s part of the social rituals required to function in society so I do it anyways.

I’ve also found it’s helpful to focus on the more truthful side of whatever is happening. “I love how much work you put into this” instead of “wow you did such a great job on this” type of difference. Gotta be careful because it can come across as sarcastic, but I usually manage to show sincerity better when I’m actually feeling sincere, so the outright false stuff comes across as sarcastic anyways. Might as well try for a more sincere

And, yeah, at the end of the day, people like hearing good things said about themselves, even if it’s not actually true. There’s narcissism in that, but given that I can’t change that behavior I might as well work with or around it as best I can. If that means more frequent but less sincere compliments, well, I like making a habit of finding the good in people anyways.