Date: August 21, 2016

Participants(from 8 countries):

Host: Rick

Panel PRO (Team A): Marwa, Jami, Zivar, Hanieh, Imad, Rojhano

Panel CON (Team B): Djamila, Behnam, Taregh, Noorola

Audience (Team C): Finda, Flory, Elham, Azamu

Team A summary:

Jami: in every relationship this is true. A relationship is a connection between two individuals, emotional, friendship ...etc and if you are not honest you are a liar and no one likes liars. Anybody who’s not telling the truth intentionally is a liar.

Marwa: honesty is really important and once honesty is lost trust is lost. Once a person lied to you that means this person is playing with you whoever the person is. To have a successful relationship, honesty is a key. Some people lie to you because they love you and this doesn’t exist, hurt me by being honest is better than fooling me with lies. There are other elements to have a successful relationship but honesty comes first. And if a person lies to you once, that’s means they can lie again.

Zivar: if two people want to have a strong and deep relationship, they need to be honest to each other. In a relationship you need something important and it is trust. Honesty and trust are essential and this doesn’t mean to be rude and unkind. You should be honest and still kind and consider the person’s feelings. The person we are in a relationship with deserves our trust and honesty and if we are not, that means they don’t deserve to be with us.

Hanieh: I consider a relationship here as someone we are close to. A successful relationship depends on each person’s expectations and to me is to be in peace with the person and if I’m not sure about the honesty of the person and I can’t trust them and for example take their advices and therefore the relationship is not successful. Only a true friend will tell you that your teeth are dirty and this is honesty and this makes a good relationship and it can be applied to every relationship. A true friend is like a mirror and I don’t know how we can call a relationship as successful if we are not honest to each other.

Imad: in a relationship if we can’t even trust each other, the relationship can’t be successful. If I find honesty in my friends, the relation lasts longer because the foundation is solid. You trust your friends and you know they will keep your secrets for example; they will not go to other people and talk on your back. If there is no trust, there is no relationship.

Rojhano: honesty brings the trust. When I see my partner is honest and never tries to lie to me then I can trust him. In an honest relationship, both partners feel safe and they and deal with life and what could happen in a smooth way. When we trust our mate, then we can forgive their intentional mistakes and forgiveness is one of the factors that define love. To have a good and strong relationship we need honesty and have a nice relationship together.

Team B summary:

Behnam: what does success and successful relationship mean? Every relationship is benefit oriented and everything we do, there are intentions behind that. We have expectations in a friendship relationship and other ones too. No matter what our friends are about to judge, if they get what they need, the relationship is successful. A relationship is based on giving and receiving and this is successful relationship for me. I believe, we are always lying and I think everybody has their own frames of friends, what I see in my friends is different from what my friends see in me. People are always lying but we still have trust in each other. For example if my wife asks me if other women are more beautiful, I would sure lie to her because I love her.

Taregh: Honesty is good but I disagree for being 100% honest with your partner. For example, if our partner asks us about our work, we don’t need to tell everything and all the details. Or if your wife is sick, and asks about your job knowing you’ve been fired; of course you’ll not tell her the truth.

Noorola: we must know what relationship we are talking about. Sometimes we can be hurt because of honesty. For example, in love relationship, it’s important to be honest but in other relationships, the matter in slightly different. First of all we need to know what relationship we are dealing with and then, we can see the degree of honesty that we are going to apply.

Djamila: I think relationships are different, circumstances are different and expectations are different. We obviously have different relationships with different people in our lives and saying that we are 100% honest with all of them is a clean lie. We can’t have a culture of honesty in our relationships, all of us tend to omit and color the truth and that doesn’t mean we are not good people, trustful people and reliable people. We need to look at different factors in every relationship, and to me honesty is not the key to having a solid relationship.

Team C votes:

Flory: Team A,
Elham: Team A/B

Team A won, congratulations to both teams for a great job

Rick’s take away: None of us is perfect and none of us have gone through life without making mistakes and saying white lies. We know that honesty and communication are the foundation for a successful relationship, so we also know that when someone is lied to, they feel betrayed and may not trust again. We also know that people will lie because they may want to protect the person from the truth, that they believe the other person may not be able to handle the truth. Ultimately, for any lie, there is a risk that you will compromise the relationship, and if we choose not to be truthful, we need to be prepared for the consequences.

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