[Frwy]

I don't think this is the time to lie. Boldly tell the truth and decline to go. He already knows how you view his circumstances. If you accept it in your cousin and not in others, it makes you a hypocrite.

Is that what you really want to be to your cousin. Trite as it might be, honesty is the best policy.

[GSlob]

"I don't think this is the time to lie. Boldly tell the truth and decline to go. "
One does not have to tell the truth, if the same [behavioral] result could be accomplished with less load on the subsequent relationship, whatever that relationship might be. Besides, somebody said that a little hypocrisy is what greases the wheels of life and makes it more bearable. Thus, in hypocrisy, in lying, like in everything else, including telling the truth, there must be some optimal measure, and one would not go wrong by sticking to it. Nothing to excess: one politburo member [pun intended] was suffering from bed wetting. He was pissed off [another pun intended] at it, and took a hypnosis treatment course. The treatment proved out to be so successful that after it he could not urinate even during daytime, and burst. Thus, nothing to excess, even truthfulness.