When you feel yourself mired in crafting the prefect excuse, stop. This is a distraction. People will likely see through your excuse anyways.
Avoid dishonesty, but not because it’s the “right” thing to do. Morality is irrelevant.
When you are dishonest, you might not get caught, but you are automatically caught by yourself.
Dishonesty chisels away at your image of yourself as a good person, you’re jeopardizing your self-esteem.
And funny enough, low self-esteem is the reason why you can’t handle rejection and can’t dish it out.