The problem is that your friend will eventually ask the same question to an honest person, or otherwise discover that $25-30 is really the widespread going rate for the coat. And then feel even worse (especially if she actually overpaid for the coat and lost the chance to return it within 30 days). By making yourself likable, you're potentially reducing the long-term happiness of the friend. Of course this example is about a frivolous thing, but what if the original question was "what do you think of my startup idea"?
There are some cases where being brutally honest has no long-term benefit so you might as well white lie, but it takes too much mental overhead to figure that out at every such stage in every conversation. I hate it when people default to always white lying.
I default to being honest, to the extent that I respond truthfully to the dreaded "does this make me look fat" question. I hope we can still be friends.
> but it takes too much mental overhead to figure that out at every such stage in every conversation
This is the heart of the matter, I think. A large part of the brain's power seems to be tuned for sensing status and other social friend-or-foe questions. It's a genuinely complex problem, and it's hard to do while you're also thinking hard about something else.
(The flip side of this is that sometimes it's useful to anthropomorphize the elements of the problem, and that explaining a problem to someone else often brings out aspects you've overlooked.)
There are some cases where being brutally honest has no long-term benefit so you might as well white lie, but it takes too much mental overhead to figure that out at every such stage in every conversation. I hate it when people default to always white lying.
I default to being honest, to the extent that I respond truthfully to the dreaded "does this make me look fat" question. I hope we can still be friends.