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I think this can be a mental health issue. Someone who MUST lie even, as the OP stated, for small things, someone who is compelled to lie, probably isn't very stable/mentally healthy/secure.
My mother was a pathological liar. She HAD to make stuff up. About everything. Not even kidding. Everything was rewritten history. I have a lot of family "history" told to me by my mother that I don't even know is true.
Sometimes the motive was clear - she either wanted to come off as superior/amazing in her stories, or she wanted attention. And frequently she'd lie about people in order to get the person hearing her "story" on her side, so to speak, or to help her (i.e. very selfish/manipulative motives, also extremely unhealthy). But sometimes there could be literally no reason at all (not that there's ever a "reason" to lie, I just mean, some actual motive). She HAD to invent life and that was it.
This never changed. It went on this way until her death. I have no idea whether any story she ever told me was true. She was never a "real person."
I think people who chronically lie really, really dislike themselves and can't stand the world as it is. So they create things that never happened and never could happen. Or it may be out of fear - what if nobody notices them? What if they just disappear? What if they get in trouble? A lie will fix all of that. Make yourself sound amazing, make someone else sound tiny, make up a GREAT excuse for flubbing up...and you're golden. Well, until you're "outed." In my mother's case, that was when it was time to move on. Four husbands, innumerable live-ins, innumerable affairs, more than 20 homes.
So don't think these people are happy - because they're not. They're miserable, and they're running from everything - even themselves. And unless they see what they're doing and get help, they'll be running forever.
I have known several habitual liars in my life. I've gotten to the point that when these people talk to me it's just so much wind coming toward me. In my mind they are non people and serve no purpose.
The most dangerous liars are the ones that wear suits and have very impressive speech skills and can make any uninformed person to be impressed with them. Yes, and it's not just men, there maybe more habitual liars that are women then men.
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