When I was in high school, rarely was an insult worse than calling someone “fake.”

“Gosh, I love your shoes,” a girl might say, sitting next to you in chemistry, simultaneously giving you a side-eye that communicated much more convincingly that she did not, actually, love your shoes at all. In fact, the way she’d said she loved your shoes caused you to give them a closer look to figure out what was wrong with them.

It was something about the way the words didn’t match the eyes that did it, that made the words less than hollow. It transformed them. The chasm between truth and assertion not only neutered the compliment but changed it into an insult.

“Ugh, she’s so fake,” you might tell your friend at lunch.

But I’ve been seeing more of this general fakery lately — dishonest compliments, two-faced words belied by actions or demeanors, the “gosh, I love your shoes” of conversations. Women will sweetly wonder how to encourage their teenage daughters to be more “healthy,” something that somehow always means “lose weight.” A guy might ask for advice about how to kick a cheater out of his fantasy football group without even slightly upsetting the man. What people really want to know is, “How can I get what I want without asking for it? How can I say one thing and mean another?”

When true feelings emerge — often anger, due to its persistence — there’s an explosion, like at a stoplight when the lady in the minivan doesn’t come fast enough off the brake or when Uncle Fred’s Facebook post seems slightly rude. There’s permanent disengagement, threats, fury and actions out of bounds of normal behavior. When genuine reactions have been held back too much, maybe it’s difficult to make their expression proportional to the offense. The interactions have a lot of weight to carry.

I can’t blame it entirely on gentle parenting, but it certainly hasn’t helped.

If you don’t have young kids or grandkids, the “gentle parenting” technique might have passed you by.

It’s been all the rage, though, and those who practice gentle parenting forswear all punishment (let alone any of the corporal variety). Instead, gentle parents validate babies’ and children’s emotions and behavior, always in a soft, soothing tone. They never judge or shame. They never admit to any non-tender feeling, never lose their limitless patience.

“McKynzie, I see you’re feeling sad because it’s time to leave the playground. You’re so frustrated,” a gentle mother says in a crooning, not-at-all-enraged voice as little McKynzie delivers a perfect uppercut to her mom’s jaw. “You want to keep playing because it’s so fun, and I wish we could stay at the park forever, sweetie, but hands are not for hitting.”

So, what happens when the words “I’m empathetic to your struggles and support your continued expression of frustration” don’t match the feelings, which are closer to “Two more seconds of this and I’m going to tear my hair out and go screaming into the street, leaving you and all my worldly possessions behind”?

In the service of politeness, mild dishonesty can be excused. Not everyone who asks how your day is going needs to hear about your constipation. And kids are particularly sensitive, especially to words from the people they love, so there’s nothing wrong with watching our words or tone — or moderating their intensity.

But in most interactions, being kind yet genuine often works better than being as nice as possible. You may not get exactly what you want, but in avoiding fakery, you’ll have opened the valve and let off a bit of steam. Don’t underrate the value of that.