My current answer to the question of how I can be less blunt and mean is “spend an uncomfortably long time thinking about all the potential ways what I’m going to say could be interpreted and rethink what I’m going to say until I can’t think of any particularly unpleasant interpretations”.
That sounds like a good strategy, and one that will get easier with practice.
That sounds like a good strategy, and one that will get easier with practice.