truthiness (noun)
1 : "truth that comes from the gut, not books" (Stephen Colbert, Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report," October 2005)
2 : "the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true" (American Dialect Society, January 2006)

This is Merriam-Webster's word of 2006. Call me a geek for knowing this, but there it is. While I am a fan of the Colbert Report, it's the second definition of truthiness that caught my attention. Because how many times do we kid ourselves about the truth? We could have the cold, hard, ugly truth right in front of us, yet we choose to believe something else and make that our truth. Okay, you know that I have to relate this back to men and relationships somehow ..... but I have been in quite a few relationships that involved the male (my caring partner) cheating on me, and all the signs and gut feelings pointed to the fact that this was happening, yet I wished for another truth (ie. he is not cheating on me) and made that my truth. Unfortunately, this truthiness never lasts long - at least with me. I know people who can live in truthiness (also know as "denial") for years and years, but not me. Here comes the pessimism now - how many relationships do you know of that are built on truth and honesty? I personally don't know many. Affairs and secrets seem to be commonplace - why bother being with somebody if you can't talk to them about what really matters?

At any rate, truthiness ruled in 2006, integrity was all the rage in 2005, and blog hit the top of the charts in 2004.