Many people think they are being truthful when they are giving their opinion and are framing it in the most hurtful way possible.
Kindness, the most under rated of virtues (IMHO) demands that we attempt to be gentle with other people.
Of course sometimes that is either not possible or will not get the job done.
If I tell the repair person that the washing machine is ok when it is leaking like a sieve then I am not going to get the machine fixed.
To get the job done I have to tell him that it is leaking. However adding that he is the most incompetent repair person I have ever met is not necessary and might not even be true.
One really notices these nuances when one is coaching an autism-spectrum son regarding his relations with people who probably aren’t like him. (The kid who sang, “God Save Emperor Franz” in German at karaoke night IS like him. Zot, that was surreal. And then Pat “sang” a My Chemical Romance instrumental number.) Where was I ...
Oh, even when the conversation is about video games or sports or movies, there are ways to share your opinion that don’t cause everyone to avoid you for the next four years.
“I like Bastille a lot!” says some kid at the church youth group. If you don’t like Bastille, you can say, “They suck!” but now the other kid thinks you’re a jerk. Or you can say, “My sisters listened to them for a couple of years. I thought that one song, “Pompeii,” was interesting, because yadda yadda volcano excavation Pliny the Younger my grandma,” and then you can mention a band you like.