Radical Honesty

I don’t read Esquire on a regular basis, although I usually like what I find there. (Their regular web content is too short and blippy, though.) But A.J. Jacobs, the guy who wrote this piece about “Radical Honesty” occasionally reads Dethroner, so I’m going to link it because I think it’s a fun piece and because I think it might net me another email where he says he likes the site.

inform our twenty-seven-year-old nanny that “if my wife left me, I would ask you out on a date, because I think you are stunning.”
She laughs. Nervously.
“I think that makes you uncomfortable, so I won’t mention it again. It was just on my mind.”
Now I’ve made my own skin crawl. I feel like I should just buy a trench coat and start lurking around subway platforms. Blanton says he doesn’t believe sex talk in the workplace counts as sexual harassment — it’s tight-assed society’s fault if people can’t handle the truth — but my nanny confession just feels like pure abuse of power.

The subject of the article, the man behind “Radical Honesty,” is Brad Blanton, a crotchety old man who might be living the dream. The one where he says everything that’s on his mind, feelings be damned, and doesn’t worry a bit about what other people think of him.

I Think You’re Fat [Esquire]