A few years ago, for example, when I went to see the play my girlfriend had done stage crew for, and she asked what I thought of it. She wasn't satisfied with my initial noncommittal answers, so she pressed for more. Not in a "trying to start a fight" way; I just wasn't doing a good job of being evasive. I eventually gave in and explained why I thought the acting had sucked, which did not make her happy. I think incidents like that must have contributed to our breaking up shortly thereafter. The breakup was a good thing for other reasons, but I still regret not lying to her about what I thought of the play.

It could be that the wrong lesson is being learned here. If someone were to write a relationship debugging cheatsheet flowchart it would almost certainly start with "Was I being a pussy[1]?". Weakness is the problem here, the honesty is secondary. The pattern described is:

• Request for feedback.
• Evasiveness.
• More requests.
• More evasive answers.
• Push for clear communication.
• Critical comment.

That is one of the worst reply strategies imaginable[2]. It signals fear, lack of confidence, untrustworthiness, incompetence at navigating the flow of conversation and submissiveness. The precise details of the final reply there are not important. The reluctant honesty presented effectively as a 'confession' doesn't work well. Reluctantly getting badgered into lying to say what you think she wants you to hear isn't exactly optimal either.

If you want to lie in response to a social-feedback review situation then just do it, straight off. If you don't want to lie then an option is to honestly say that you enjoyed the play and particularly liked <one of the many things that didn't suck> and have a clear boundary against being pressed. Evasiveness then compliance is just way off.

1. People uncomfortable with that term can either replace it with a preferred one or do a search for previous discussions here of the etymology.

2. There are exceptions including but not limited to "get naked and start beating her with a maggot infested Koala liver".