I can only speak from my experience.

It's a no-win situation. If you tell the lie and are caught in it later, you'll often hear "Why couldn't you just tell me the truth?! I'd rather hear the truth, even if it's ugly." However, if you buckle down and tell that ugly truth, you're the asshole.

There's no way to win.

I tell people truths they do not want to hear all the time, and its usually bad, but I would rather tell the truth than lie. I have never said anything to someone I could not live with. If they can not handle the truth and it affects our friendship.. so be it. Was not much of a friendship.

There is nothing to forgive when the truth is given. When the lie puts trust into jeopardy, it is not worth forgiving.

Truth simply is. If someone only states the truth and it hurts my feelings, isn't that my own fault and not theirs? And if someone intends harm, wouldn't that mean my faith is lost in them not for what they say, but their desired effect?

I have a big mouth, and truth often comes out. I have found that both the way you say things and when you say them have a lot to do with how well those things are received.

I'm not given to telling the facile lie. I almost always tell the truth, but, but I try to do it in some way that isn't painful for the listener. And sometimes I have to accept that I'm not the right person to deliver the truth.

I don't think I'm either reviled or forgiven.

Er... You have spoken uncomfortable truths to me before and I didn't consider that there was anything to forgive. I wouldn't have brought certain things up had I not fully expected to hear your honest analysis. It has never occured to me that you would lie, either.

But to answer your question, I think it's not as simple as all that. Some people are just a lot more fragile about personal criticisms. Or maybe there are times when an ego just can't take hearing something less than flattering. Timing, as Manwoody said, is one of the handful of things in life that really matters.