You sound a lot like a friend of mine that I’ve known since grade school. Among my friends, he’s known as the guy who will just not lie. We kid him about it, but we all respect him for it.
The classic story is when he broke up with his girlfriend in college (who’s now his wife), and her parents asked him why. His response? “Well, if she were just a little better looking . . .” Needless to say, we were aghast when he told us this. After twenty-some years, I don’t think her parents have yet warmed up to him.
I’ve told so many white lies my tongue’s turned black. [Geico lizard]Actually, that’s a complete fabrication.[/GL]
I think I’ve gotten too old and tired for the real heinous lies. Now, I find myself wanting to say, “Look, we’re both adults here…Can we just pretend I said what you wanted to hear and you believed it?”
I try not to lie when I can get caught. Consequentially that means that the lies I tell are normally quite large and involved. But in general I don’t lie its too hard.
Now story telling on the other hand is an art form that I like to perform and if I’m telling a story the odds are that I’m lying to accomplish what ever the point of my story is. Most of the its simply removing my friends name and replacing my own. But any good work of fiction is a lie and as far as I’m concerned people are watching me perform. I have a tendency to gather crowds at parties and all of a sudden look around and I’m standing up in the middle of the room and every one is sitting there looking at me luckily they are normally laughing.
I think this is very admirable, and I never thought of it that way before.
I have historically been one of those people who can’t lie–not to a dentist, an employer, a teacher, or a friend. For example, I used to have a house rule growing up, that I couldn’t talk for more than 10 minutes on the phone at a time. One day, I talked with a friend for 33 minutes while my parents were away, and I immediately reported my violation of this rule as soon as my folks got home, even though there was no way they ever would have known (it was a local call.) I was promptly grounded.
You could say I shot myself in the foot a lot that way–just the very IDEA of someone thinking I’m not being straight with them really shakes me up. I want people to know who I am and what I stand for, always. I’d rather be disliked for who I really am, than for who people think I am.
I think I’ve loosened up a lot since high school and all, and your post is making me realize I have been fudging it a lot lately. I’m not sure if that’s good, or bad, or doesn’t matter. But it’s worth consideration.
This is the end of my workday and I am SHOCKED to report that I only told two “little untruths in the course of pleasantries” today. I really thought that in my dealings with the public I would have told dozens.
I don’t. For the simple reason that I’m too lazy to try to remember what I told who. So people that know me don’t ask questions they don’t want the answers to.
My standard non-lying response to things is, “Do you really want to know?”
Yes! Always answer a question with another question! It saves so much lying!
Doesn’t always work, though. Two examples, from yesterday:
(1) Daughter-in-law: “Got my Trash the Dress pictures back, wanta see them?” as she proffers a stack of about 500 prints.
Me: (lying enthusiastically) Yeah! Sure!
Non-lie: Maybe later, could you leave them? Could you put them on a disk?
(2) Boss: “Do you want to put some overtime in this weekend?”
Me: “Sure!”
Non-lie: Fuck that. I don’t even want to be here today. This project is boooorrrrrriiinnnnggg. And I don’t get OT.
Two situations where “Do you really want to know?” would have got me in as much hot water as the honest answer.
And if the answer to “Do you really want to know” is yes—then I tell them.
I try really hard not to lie. Do I avoid situations where I can’t avoid lying? Yes. Do I tell the truth, but not the whole truth? Oh yeah. If pressed, will I lie? To get me out of trouble for something I did that was wrong? No. To make relationships run more smoothly? Yes.
I am as honest and open as possible — to the point where I have been told that I’m one of the most blunt people my friends and family know — but it’s basically impossible to avoid lying to people you’re in a relationship with. You end up omitting part of what you’d like to say if you wanted to be completely truthful, if you want to preserve that relationship.
You can be a lot more blunt with friends and family than lovers. I have gotten in enough arguments from being too honest over the years to know that while most people say they value the truth, they’re lying to everyone about that, including themselves. Some of the worst, most tumultuous relationships I’ve had have been the ones where I was too honest and open about things. At the very least, you have to balance the honesty with tact and relating to the other person’s viewpoint.
There will be times when you don’t give a flying fuck about something they’ve been blabbing about, but you have to recognize when it’s important enough to them for you to listen and when you can get away with saying something like, “honey, I know that this is something you want to talk about, but I really don’t care about it and because of that it’s hard to keep paying attention.” I have been brutally honest with my wife on occasion — telling her that I didn’t want to hear about whatever drama she’s got going on at the dance studio, for example — but if I did it at the wrong time, or too often, I might not have a wife for long.
My parents impressed me w/ the importance of being truthful. I had a cousin who constantly lied, she once came home w/ a horse, saying she had “found” it. She’d actually untied it and led it home. My mom fequently used her as an example to me.
I’ll hedge, or avoid answering before I’ll lie. Even such things as “How are you?” will get a reasonably honest answer, such as “I’ve been better.”. Even I think it’s silly to try being so totally honest sometimes, but it’s so ingrained I would have to make an effort to change and making an effort to deceive, even for inconsequential things, seems pointless.
I know this sounds suspect, but I think the last deliberate lie I told was more than 30 years ago. I was confronted by a military superior, who had demonstrated a desire to screw me over. I had made an innocent error, nothing of any consequence, but I knew he’s make an issue of it. I lied because I knew it couldn’t be verified. Prior to that, I lied to my first wife about having an extramarital affair.
What I find frustrating, is when I tell the truth and I’m not believed. Even if the other person doesn’t accuse me of lying, I can often tell, by their response, that they’re skeptical.
Recently I’d been doing well, zero lies/day. There were a few invites to various things that I dodged recently though. I didn’t lie, but I mislead the person I was talking to, I consider that a lie in a tally sense at least.
So, over the last two months, I estimate that I lied .3 times a day. Being unemployed sure helped with that ratio. Once I start my new job on Monday, I’ll be in training. I expect my average to go even lower.
After that, my lies will be mostly white in nature. “No, you’re not stupid. Almost every computer has an off switch.” That type of thing.
I’m a lot like this. Many times when I could save myself a lot of trouble by lying, I just don’t think of it! For example…
Friend that I don’t like: Do you not like me? [this actually happened, it was horrible]
shimmery: uh… well, sometimes, when you […] it’s kind of off-putting, to be honest.
Most of the time when I find out someone is lying to me, I’m totally blindsided and personally offended. How can they just make stuff up??
On the other hand, I’m not quite virtuous as Mr. Boink in that I am an excellent spinner. For example…
Mom: “How did you like Amsterdam?”
shimmery: "Oh, it was okay, we checked out the red light district but it pretty seedy … not that the seediness prevented me from buying and smoking lots and lots of marijuana…
ETA - I think I lie most when the explanation for why I did or want to do something is really long and boring, so I replace it with something related, but snappier!
Thnking really hard about today…I can’t think of a single falsehood I’ve told. I’ll have to pay attention the rest of the day to see if I make it through without lying.
Reminds me of a conversation I had many years ago.
Plan B’s accountant: I never lie.
Plan B: what about all those audits and crazy deductions you told me about?
Plan B’s accountant: that’s not lying, that’s my job.
)