The Little White Lie

Growing up, I always thought lies were a big calculated tale wound up in your head, twisted and turned and meant to deceive someone for the sake of either escaping punishment or to give someone the impression that you are better than you are. Since I was such a good kid (a test to see if mom is reading this), I never needed to spin such grand tales.

When I was in my twenties however, I met someone who showed me that lying, for some, is a part of their every day conversation and not something that is even calculated but flows from their lips like a song. These people can lie about what they ate for breakfast for absolutely no reason other than it was easier to say that had eggs instead of saying that they had cereal with milk and strawberries and a side of yogurt.

When I discovered that The Liar (as I will refer to him from here on out since that is what I call him in my head), was indeed lying about totally random things I was hit with a mix of feelings...I was mortified and in shock, yet oddly fascinated by this concept of lying for NO FRICKING REASON. Up to that point in my life, I had no idea…it had never crossed my mind…I couldn’t even fathom a person telling a story to someone else that was made up unless it was completely meant to deceive.

So, The Liar, he was good…but no match for me of course. Have I mentioned that I am a good investigator? Not to mention my intuition has always been dead on (just obviously a little slow sometimes since I let The Liar get a few lies in before my intuition kicked in).

I suppose I should tell you now how I knew The Liar. Yes, yes, he was my boyfriend. Uck…ick…eweee…Sorry, I just threw up a little in my mouth. Okay, anyway, yes, an ex!

He had been lying to me for a couple months probably about NOTHING AT ALL when my intuition finally told me that something just wasn’t right. Then, like a gift from the Almighty Himself, I realized I possessed this ability to not only detect his lies, but to instantly prove he was lying. It happened like this…one day, after money had been mysteriously depleting from my bank account and my bank statements had been “getting lost in the mail” (what a coincidence huh?) I confronted him about it. He claimed he had nothing to do with it. As soon as the words left his lips I walked over to his dresser drawer, opened the top drawer which was at a height higher than my vision and I reached in with one hand, grabbed at the first thing I felt and pulled out two bank statements….I glared at him with confidence as if I knew they were there all along, while in my head I was really saying “holy crap how did I just do that?”

I kicked his butt to the curb the next day of course…honestly, I was way out of his league to begin with…he blew that one big time.

Since that day though, I now get similar intuitions about other people lying to me. Not about my friends of course, CUZ MY FRIENDS ARE AWESOME AND I DON’T DESERVE THEM, but I have had the feeling about people who I am just getting to know and it makes me stop and think “should I continue to get to know them?” Should I pursue a relationship with someone who strikes me as less than honest 100% of the time. Are they really lying to me? Do they know they are lying? Why are they doing it? Is it because of me? Or is it just something they do all the time as some sort of reputation-preservation tactic? I have found that as soon as I start to get that feeling, I start to create a distance between us that I can’t stop…the gap gets wider and wider and eventually I push them out of my life for good.

Would you do the same and be okay with losing the friendship or would you confront someone at the risk of embarrassing and hurting everyone involved in order to get to the truth, possibly then still severing your ties with the person but also with the possibility of exposing their problem in order to help them and remain friends?