I personally vastly prefer directness when I’m spoken to - but it’s important to recognize that most people do not have the emotional conditioning to handle that.

This is not something that will change within our lifetimes. Learn soft skills, learn how to be indirect. You don’t have to be as verbose with it as some of the examples in this article.

“Gassing them up”, “Letting them down gently”, “Little white lies”, etc - these are all examples of how benign emotional manipulation is essentially the crux of pleasant social interaction in most of the Western world.

It’s not my personal preference but it works because most people have unhandled insecurities.