which is worse?

[Goatweed]

false hope is worse because at some point it'll come out & whoever recieved said false hope will probably feel a lot worse than the one who got told upfront that there's simply no hope at all.

how much of this is to cover your ass, and how much is because you're concerned about the persons feelings eventually being hurt?

I guess 50/50. I wouldn't want to have to feed someone bullshit to protect their feelings because if that were me I'd want to know the facts at that time, not down the line.