Why are people such lying liars?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Reading the “Worst lies” thread has me boggling (though on somber reflection, I can’t say I’m truly surprised) with some of the fantastic yarns people will try to pass off as honest-to-God truth. A couple common themes that I see (in that thread as well as elsewhere):

  • Military lies. People claiming all sorts of wild careers as “snipers” or “assassins” in the military who never did any such thing, and may not have even been in the military at all.

  • Celebrity encounters. Tales of personal relationships with celebrities that never existed, having things owned by celebrities, etc.

  • Not so much in that thread, but from personal experience people like to make up all kinds of ridiculous shit about “supernatural/paranormal” experiences they’ve had and pretend it’s stone cold truth.

And there’s a lot of other stuff in there that just makes me wonder how stupid people think their audience is when they try to pass this kind of shit off. I get that people are always trying to impress others and raise their social status, but it’s hard for me to get over how outrageously bogus they are willing to go in doing so. I mean, what the fuck? If I ever meet someone who tells a crazy lie like that, I can never again trust or believe anything they say. Don’t they realize how they’re destroying their own credibility? Do they really think people buy their B.S.?

2

I’ve wondered the same thing about people who tell the obvious outrageous lies. I wonder if they think everybody is lying all the time. They may be mistaken about the concept of ‘bullshitting’ where people hang around the bar and tell exagerrated stories not meant to be taken all that seriously. I always find the dividing line where people insist they are telling the truth even if their clear contradiction with established facts is pointed out.

3

It is the need to feel powerful and important in a world where they don’t have any.

HEY LOOK AT ME!!!

4

I guess I’m lucky, because just don’t know anyone like this. I used to work with a guy that told some tall tales, but he was very consistent with them.

5

When I called out my friend on some of his lies, he shot back with, “Well, 90% of it’s true!” In his case, he was pretty insecure about his background (he’s very intelligent, as are his parents, but they’re farmers, and he felt, I don’t know if ashamed is the right word, but that or near that, at least in my opinion).

I’ve known other people who tell more mundane lies, but I knew the people well enough to know they weren’t deliberately lying–they honestly believed what they were saying, so they were closer to being self-deluded than actually lying.

Other people I’ve known were in the realm of bullshitters, closer to conmen than friends who lied.

6

It’s not the outrageous lies that get to me. I see quite readily that they’re outrageous, and I either go with it or roll my eyes and move the conversation on. The wool has not been pulled over my eyes, and so no harm no foul is my general reaction.

What gets me are idiotic lies, like the one that started the “Worst lies” thread. Claiming to forget someone’s name when trying to get some mail (presumably addressed to said someone) forwarded is just idiotic, and it makes want to both laugh and cry.

7

It’s not really their fault. It’s like I was saying to Barack and Michelle the other day, the people who tell these ridiculous lies simply lack the inner reserves of mental strength and discipline available to those of us who served three tours with the U.S. Navy SEALS before spending five years in Tibet studying with the Dalai Lama himself and then going on to start our own multi-million-dollar international consulting firms.

8

I do think that most of them do it to try to make themselves feel special.
I haven’t knowingly met one of those guys who pretend to be veterans, but I have encountered women who claim to have “psychic powers”.
A part of me wants to ridicule them for being stupid enough to think that such a thing could ever be true and/or deceiving the gullible who actually believe them, but another part of me does feel kind of sorry for them. It must be a sad life, if you have nothing real to be proud of and have to make up ridiculous lies to impress people.

9

Yeah, that’s the ticket!

10

I will admit to having stretched the truth on more than one occasion (or two, or three, whatever). I think I did it because I like to entertain, to have the attention that telling a good story gets me. However, I do not think of myself as a ‘liar’ since I do not try to hurt, deceive, or subtract from anybody elses truth. I understand this could be a flaw in my personal moral code.

I would never lie in an answer to a direct question. I would not lie to save my ass but I might lie (and have) to save somebody elses ass (as in taking the blame when unjustly accused). For the most part, I am not smart enough to keep up with lies I have told and found truth to be simpler.

As for others, I value those who will be brutally truthful with me. I have a friend who, because of some brain damage suffered as a child is almost incapable of telling a lie. Many times what he says is painful for me to hear, but I find I am so much more able cope with his brutal truth than others kindhearted lies.

11

It’s a good question. When I was a hotel rep I got to reception one day, all the staff were giggling. One of my guests had confided in most of the staff, one by one, that he was an undercover SAS or whatever and expecting a VERY important phone call, but was unable to talk about his work. Pompous git, everyone went between laughing at him and feeling sorry for him since he was actually quite a nice guy.

12

Well, on the other side of the coin…

Watching one of those “stupidest criminal” shows today.

Two cops trying to question this woman. Missed what happened, but she tries to tell them that she’s an undercover narcotics officer. They end up taking her down hard, complete with the whole “beat her while screaming at her to stop resisting” thing.

Turned out that she WAS an undercover narcotics officer.

Then they mentioned that she turned in her badge over the incident.

13

I posted in that thread about my ex-husband. Since I have a relationship with his brother independent of him, I had some insight into what was real and what was not (later on, when I started asking questions - it’s a big ball of intertangled friends so it’s not like I had the brother there to verify a lot of the things I believed all the time).

Part of having that independent relationship means I had some verification about things that happened to him growing up and more back story than a lot of people get when they are involved with a liar.

My ex was shuffled around quite a bit, I believe he was abused due to more than one of his mother’s relationships, and his father died when he was 14. He had a “hard coming up” as they say. He became someone that lied to make himself whatever he needed to be in the moment. When I got involved with him he was a very metro computer and graphics guy that spent his time going to pride parades and downplaying his military career. Within the relationship he began to become more of a “traditional southern boy” that grilled on weekends, had boots, rode horses and four wheelers. His military stories grew as he let me in on “the real story”.

When I got pregnant he was the most wonderful person in the world who managed to lie enough on his resume to get a job as whatever the hell he was working in an American Family Care. He told them he was in nursing school. He gave shots. Yeah, it’s their fault for not checking but damn, how scary is that? He also managed to work in a Lab that services all the major hospitals and doctor’s offices around here. He never stayed at one place terribly long. When my son was born he decided he “always wanted to be” (a recurring phrase) a truck driver. He got a CDL and hit the road. We were divorced not long after that. He had a pregnant girlfriend up north and spun a tale of woe the likes of which you’ve never heard.

I’ve seen him be a metrosexual guy, a hippie, a biker, a truck driver, a nurse, a cowboy, a computer nerd, a troubled vet. It’s just weird to me now.

He just always was what he needed to be at the time. I think he learned it growing up. His mother is a notorious liar and I guess that’s how he learned it.

It’s sad. I don’t know if anyone knows the real him. I thought I saw flashes of it sometimes, and it was a very scared little boy (most notably when his brother had an accident and was at death’s door in ICU - he clings to his brother like a lifeline). I know so many of his secrets and he has no idea (confrontation with proof of lies is like handing him a loaded gun and asking him to shoot you, which he has threatened before when I called him on a military lie). He just… grew up wrong, I guess.

I believe he is seriously mentally ill, and he scares me. But if he showed up on my doorstep tonight, I can almost guarantee he’d figure out how to charm me into something (not bed, I’m in a monogamous relationship), but at least a kind word. He’s good at that. Very, very good.

14

Lying for entertainment purposes is called fiction. We’d have a dull world without it. I make a lot of outrageous statements meant to be amusing, and should be recognized as such by most reasonably intelligent people, but occasionally some people are clueless and claim that I’m a liar because I couldn’t possibly have served in the Civil War. But if no one laughs, I try to indicate in some way that I’m joking. And if any one asks “Is that true?”, I’d definitely answer no.

It is a lot easier to be misunderstood online because I’m not fond of emoticons and the ‘listeners’ can’t see my facial expression.

Anyway it’s not immoral to lie about anything if the person being lied to does not have a moral basis for expecting to hear the truth, thus lying to the Nazis looking for Jews hiding in the attic is not immoral.

15

I think that for some people they feel inferior, and that they need to have amazing stories to impress people. And for some others they already feel superior to everyone, and enjoy looking down on everyone who believes their stories and doesn’t know that they’re lying.

16

My husband bullshits, and catches me up in his shit!! I stand there,correct him,and get the dirty stare!! LOL

17

Some people are just compulsive liars. But usually compulsive liars are really good at lying.

18

I used to lie. Now I exaggerate for effect. It’s all part of the growth process - when you get to the age where you are seen as a stolid, respectable citizen you can get away with all kinds of shit.

19

What I hate is being told a lie I would have to be as dumb as a box of rocks to believe. Not only am I being lied to, but I am having my intelligence insulted. It is really sad the amount of time our society spends verifying every thing because lying is so common. Also, time spent documenting anything you say. I avoid dealing with people I have caught in a lie as much as I can.

20

I have a cousin-in-law who worked at NSA - that was true. He liked to be all mysterious about it, hinting but never saying anything. When I got a job that involved having to deal with NSA, among other 3-letter agencies, I found out cuz was little more than a glorified accountant/bookkeeper. Other than knowing what sorts of things NSA was spending money on, he had no connection to their spook work. So while it wasn’t a lie, it was still pretty pathetic, I thought.