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ARGUING ASSUMES TRUTH
8 JAN 2025
INTROS ARE FOR INTROSPECTION
Growing up, I had this friend who lied a lot. Everyone lies, I know that, but this one hits different. It’s one thing to lie to someone, maybe because you believe your protecting them, or to hide a mistake, or to even avoid a consequence. But this was something different.
It’s one thing to lie to another person.
It’s another thing to lie to yourself.
Them type of lies rob you quietly. Just a slow erosion of self-respect. You don’t even get the dignity of knowing when you crossed the line because you’ve convinced yourself there was never a line to begin with.
I’ll get on with the story in a second. I promise.
But before I do, let me ask you something. What is worse in your opinion? A lie from a friend, or a lie from a woman?
Relax ladies. Don’t kill me.
This is a luxuriously intimate storytelling platform built for the modern ambitious man. I built this space to help create better men for better women 😉
And if you’re a woman reading this and your answer is “man,” just tap the option that says woman.
I get it.
Alright. Enough warming up. Story time in 3… 2… 1.
CONVERSATIONS WITHOUT CONNECTION
“I didn’t do it.”
“What the f*ck, bro? I literally watched you do it. Why lie? I don’t get it. Moving like a b*tch.”
“Fair enough.”
For what felt like the hundredth time, Idris left the room. Walking away was the only way to avoid a fight with someone he used to call a close friend. But things had changed.
At some point, you have to accept who someone really is, for your own peace of mind.
Junior had been lying since they were kids. It was never just the two of them, either. There were Kairo, Denver, and Zaire. Over the years, each of them drifted away from him for different reasons, but the result was always the same.
But Idris couldn’t dodge the bullet.
They were “cousins.”
Not by blood, by proximity. Junior was raised by his mother, along with her other children. She was a longtime friend of Idris’s mother from the neighborhood. They spent a lot of time together.
Idris’s father never liked it.
“Cut her off. I won’t tell you twice.”
He said it every time Idris’ mother came home late after getting “losing track of time.”
Junior’s mother wasn’t evil.
She was worse. She was contradictory.
She criticised the same life she lived, never self-aware enough to take responsibility for it. Always blaming, never admitting fault. Always explaining, never changing.
Junior picked up that habit easy.
The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, especially when the tree never learned to stand straight.
YOU CANNOT ASSUME A TRUTH
Idris spent way too long dealing with the lies Junior kept producing. The more he unintentionally manipulated his words, the more Idris adapted to them without realising it.
“I was just joking.” “You know how I am.”
”Trust me.”
”Bro, I didn’t even know that was a problem.”
”I’ll pay you back.”
Claps in sarcasm*
… And the most dangerous one goes to:
“That’s just how it happened.”
Translation: Once someone believes their own version enough times, the truth stops mattering.
Idris has enabled more than he should, and hasn’t caught on to the delusion he is living in. He finds himself double-checking things when it comes to Junior, when he shouldn’t have to. Finds himself explaining Junior to other people. The tension alone he feels when he hears Junior speak. Preparing for disappointment has become a routine that no one really wants.
Idris didn’t argue anymore. Arguing assumed truth was somewhere in the room. With Junior, it rarely was. He learned to listen for tone rather than words, to watch hands rather than eyes, to accept that every story came with a shadow. It made him sharp. It made him tired, too.
TOLERATION BECOMES DISRESPECT
It’s Sunday Morning.
The kind of morning that’s supposed to be quiet. Light filtering through half-open blinds. The city is moving slower than usual, like even time knows to mind its business.
The knock comes anyway.
Idris already knows who it is. He opens the door with that knowledge sitting heavy in his chest — feeling like he is sitting on some bad boy information.
Junior stands there, eyes glassy, posture loose, breath ahead of him.
“Are you drunk?” Idris asks.
The question leaves his mouth before he can stop it. The regret comes right after.
“How can you even ask that? It’s a Sunday, bro.”
Junior scoffs, offended. Clearly, his voice is thick, drowning in Hennessy.
Silence stretches between them.
That’s when the fatigue hits. This is deep, bone-level tiredness. The kind you feel when you’ve repeated the same emotional motion too many times, and your body finally refuses to bend to it.
He’s tired of explaining, tired of making excuses. He doesn’t want to do it anymore.
Not for Junior.
Not for history.
Not even for sympathy.
At some point, you realize something painful but freeing.
You cannot help someone who doesn’t want to help himself.
Junior talks anyway. His words spill out without a place to go. The stories have a sense of familiarity, yet gaps still fill the space. Idris already knew how to finish his explanations for him. Idris listens out of habit, nodding at the right moments, watching the hands rather than the eyes. What is the equivalent of Morse code for a liar?
And then it happens.
Junior says, “That’s just how it happened.”
The sentence has a soft tone to it, almost like it’s trying to appear harmless.
Before his mind catches up, Idris feels it in his chest.
He was done arguing, and this time, he ain’t got no questions left. It’s not his place to correct this version, nor will it ever be. Because arguing assumes there is truth in the room, and Idris finally understands the truth.
The cold truth.
He’s been repairing Junior’s reality for years at the cost of his own. When Junior finally completes his bullsh*t, his audacity waits for the usual response. The usual words to comfortably reassure him.
It doesn’t come.
Idris steps aside from the doorway in a style that seems neutral. He doesn’t invite Junior in. Doesn’t even shut him out, neither. He lets the universe create space between them. Real space. And about time it did.
Junior notices, but the devil dances on his left shoulder. His smile falters for a second.
“What?” he asks.
“Nothing,” Idris says. And this time, it’s the truth.
The room stays quiet. The morning light doesn’t move.
For once, Idris lets the moment stand exactly how it is.
In the quiet, the decision becomes clear.
Clearly.
JUNIOR’S MOTHER IS A…
Junior’s mother didn’t wake up one day and decide to be dishonest.
Her life taught her how to survive by bending the truth just enough to get through the day. She learned early that accountability was expensive, that reflection asked questions she couldn’t afford to answer at the time. So she learned to explain instead. To redirect. To talk her way out of discomfort not knowing that’s where you grow.
The thing is, it did make her tired.
The kind of tired that convinces you tomorrow will fix what today keeps breaking. The kind of tired that mistakes motion for progress. She criticised the same life she lived because admitting she was wrong would’ve meant admitting she stayed too long, ignored too much, and settled when she shouldn’t have.
Junior grew up inside that logic.
He learned that truth was flexible. That intention mattered more than impact. That saying something enough times made it real — or at least survivable. He didn’t become a liar because he wanted to deceive people. He became one because that was the language of his home.
And that’s the part Idris finally understood.
Junior wasn’t the devil.
His mother wasn’t either.
But inheritance doesn’t care about intentions. It just keeps moving forward unless someone stops it.
Idris couldn’t stop it for him.
Love couldn’t stop it.
History couldn’t stop it.
Only Junior could.
The moment a man decides to sit with the truth long enough for it to hurt without rewriting it or defending it blindly will be the moment he truly changes and becomes the best version of himself.
Until then, the cycle keeps breathing through new mouths.
Idris closed the door later that morning without slamming it. This time, there were no final words. Some separations don’t need punctuation. It only left room for honesty.
Junior stood on the other side with the same choice he’d always had — the same one his mother never made.
To keep surviving.
Or to finally tell the truth and become something else.
What he chooses is his choice, no matter what he, you, or I think.
The Hood Author’s Note
This story closes a chapter for me, and opens one for you.
It’s the final premium piece I’m releasing for free, but take this as an invitation. An invitation to sit with truth, responsibility, and the quiet decisions that shape who we become when no one is watching.
IN10MACY is about refinement in the most entertaining way. Learning doesn’t have to be boring. Investing in IN10MACY is investing in the best version of yourself. The one that chooses honesty over comfort, growth over familiarity, and sound over noise.
You deserve the finer things in life.
The question is: will you truly grasp them, or just admire them from a distance?
— This is your Hood Author, Mr.10
#IN10MACY
#10OUT
I think part of being a good friend to someone is calling them out on the lie, explaining how you know it’s a lie, and being the one to instill good morals and possibly until that friend finally begins to realize that you’re right and maybe even starts to feel bad about it or at least begins to think before speaking. However, some people are pathological liars and it just doesn’t ever click with them that it’s wrong. So, separating yourself from that person could be the only way to protect you from being drained by all the dishonesty. It’s a difficult situation. One I can relate to but that friend doesn’t call or come around anymore because I had to put the foot down. Enough, I said. I meant it. I tried to help but, she was set in those ways. Very conniving, and vindictive. Great story. Hope all is well! ❤️🩹❤️🤗
The more intimate the relationship, the more invested trust, the greater the sense of betrayal. You have to love someone for a lie to really hurt.