I think that, for the most part, there is one major reason that people lie. They do so to save their own hides, or the hides of those they care about. Sometimes they lie to create an illusion of who they are. Sometimes they lie to protect their inner world from collapsing. But mostly it is to protect themselves. I find it funny whenever someone, in conversation, says something like, “I’m not gonna lie,….” What immediately runs through my mind is, “So, that means that you usually DO lie?” The thing is that people so often think that they can get away with lying, and then when they are caught in a lie they act all indignant like YOU are the one who did something wrong by catching them in their lie. It is quite priceless, really.
I have this thing. It might be part of my psychic gift package, or it might be simply because I pay attention to EVERYTHING, even micro facial expressions. This thing is that I most often can tell when someone is lying to me. But I don’t often let the person know that I know this. It amuses me, I suppose, to see just how far they are willing to take that lie. As long as it is nothing that directly affects me in any negative way, then why bother challenging them on it? But if it does, or if it will affect someone I care about in a negative way, then I will be all over that.
When I was in high school, I was dating a wonderful girl. She was smart, funny, and quite attractive. I cannot say that we were in love. We had only dated a few months. According to my mother we were on the fast track to getting married. She really, Really, REALLY liked this girl. I tended to completely ignore her remarks, because she did not know this girls psychotic family. I had met them. I was not investing myself into that nest of snakes. My girlfriend was not so much like that. She was kind-hearted. However, I was also aware that she was starting to lie to me. A few months into the relationship was when it first began. I would ask clarifying questions, and she would elaborate a bit more, but her entire energy was screaming, “Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire.” I decided to wait it out. I was hoping that she would eventually come clean. In the meantime, anytime she would hold my hand I would get visual flashes of her with another guy. I was hoping that I was wrong. But I was not. She eventually told me about him. She wanted, at first, to date us both at the same time. I told her that this was something that I was not into in any way. She had to choose between us, or I would choose to end it. She decided to choose him. Sure, I was hurt. But I figured that I had dodged a bullet there, because now HE was dating a liar and a cheat, and I was not. Pretty insightful for a 16 year old!
My mother had a difficult time adjusting to us not dating anymore. She was far more invested in that than was I. And, years later, when she was visiting me and my wife at the time, she wanted to call my ex-girlfriend up and have her meet us for coffee. I laughed and told her that if she wanted to have coffee with her, that was fine, but she need not EVER expect me to even be in the same room as her. I also told her how disrespectful that suggestion was to my wife. She never brought her up again.
I never told my mother that the girlfriend had been lying to me or cheating on me. It was none of her business. I figured that if I was old enough to be dating and perusing someone, then I was also old enough to deal with the emotional fallout of a relationship that goes sideways. So I kept that to myself.
I must say that I do try to not “pick up” on things that people around me want to keep secret and will lie about to protect themselves. But I would prefer honesty. That way everyone knows what the situation is and how to handle it from that point forward. But people are so often immature about dealing with situations that they default to lying. Now, I do not mind someone trying to keep a secret from me, such as a surprise party in my honor. Things like that are fine. But when someone is trying to hide something because they know I will be angry about it, that is not fine. My mother would tell me things like, “If you tell me the truth, you will not get into as much trouble as you will if you lie to me and then I find out that you lied.” I kind of live by that in my life. And God forbid anyone try to get me to lie for them when it is completely unnecessary. I do not like when people try to pull shady stuff, and I like it even less when they try to entangle me into that shady stuff.
What this all means, however, is that I had to learn this thing called “tact.” I mean, honesty is preferable, but you can also be kind with honesty. You do not have to be brutally honest. That is just plain mean. And if you think that you must be brutal in order to be honest, then you are certainly lying to yourself. So be honest, but be kind. How we phrase things can make a world of difference for the one who is on the receiving end.