What Happened to Belgian Frankness?

As a little girl I was taught to speak my mind. To my knowledge I have never put things bluntly because I believe I was brought up to be polite as well as direct. In my view being direct can avoid a lot of trouble. When speaking directly people will always know what you mean.

Some people prefer indirect communication. That is alright by my standards. Indirect communication involves a lot of interpretation of circumstantial and secondary information. In some cultures direct communication will prevail, in others indirect communication will. As I stated before: as a little girl I was taught to speak my mind, therefore it is safe to say that I abide by direct communication. Since I was raised a Belgian I never doubted that direct communication was a Belgian thing.

Nowadays I am not so sure anymore: recently I had conversation which left me somewhat baffled. Somewhere along the line it hit me that the person I was talking to did not really speak his mind. In fact it seemed like he went along with what I was saying just to be polite. In the end it did not do our little conversation much good. What is the use of agreeing with someone when as a matter of fact you disagree? In fact this attitude led to a lot of confusion. As a result I did get the wrong end of the stick. This was a shame. I am genuinely interested in what people have to say, whether they agree with me or not.
I am asking myself why some Belgians no longer seem to speak their mind. In all honesty: ‘What happened to Belgian frankness?’ Did Belgian frankness disappear along with the Belgian franc and the subsequent introduction of the euro?