Some people's joy of lying (mom, generation, father, responsibility)
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There are also people who love to obfuscate - which can be a type of lying. And when you ask them something, they will obfuscate or try to hide the truth or will have trouble giving a direct answer. They will couch the answer in double-talk or double-speak so that you're not sure of the answer.
This double-speak also gives them a way out of things, for future use. For example, if you ask "When you are in San Francisco, will you be visiting Allison?" The answer will be "I do not plan to" - while they really will be visiting Allison, they will claim later, if found out, that they "did not plan to visit Allison".
I like lawyers, but a huge number of them are great at obfuscating, as a learned part of the profession, and in mastering the profession.....for certain types of legal work.
Last edited by matisse12; 01-12-2019 at 07:08 PM..
"Obfuscation is the obscuring of the intended meaning of communication by making the message difficult to understand, usually with confusing and ambiguous language. It is accomplished with circumlocution (talking around the subject), or the use of jargon (technical language of a profession)."
Just listening to my morning NPR and the discussion is about the lying of a huge person in our world that has lied in everything he's done, business, relationships and now politics.
There are books written about this subject and even on this person's psychology. I once had a friend who was going to write a book on this subject as he said everyone does, so thinking now the book's title could be The Art of Lying. ummmm
There are also people who love to obfuscate - which can be a type of lying. And when you ask them something, they will obfuscate or try to hide the truth or will have trouble giving a direct answer. They will couch the answer in double-talk or double-speak so that you're not sure of the answer.
This double-speak also gives them a way out of things, for future use. For example, if you ask "When you are in San Francisco, will you be visiting Allison?" The answer will be "I do not plan to" - while they really will be visiting Allison, they will claim later, if found out, that they "did not plan to visit Allison".
Welcome to my world.
Someone I’m married to routinely obfuscates for two reasons: 1) so he doesn’t have to commit to anything, and 2) so he can’t be held accountable for anything. Just like your “Allison” example above.
If he forgets to obfuscate he will lie after the fact to try to avoid personal responsibility.
The reasons make sense to me, but I'm not one of those people. Only once in recent years have I even pranked somebody.
Is anyone here brave enough to speak about it from a liar's perspective?
Can people like that learn to find satisfaction in telling the truth?
Liars feel superior to other people. It’s easy for them to “get one over” on others and they glory in it.
I think they make up whoppers because at some point in their childhood development they felt deeply inferior to other people. Successful lying confers power. You know you’re lying, but others don’t.
In our family, we have a saying. "It's not a lie unless it goes longer than 24 hours."
I come from a big family. Sometimes we make up BS just for the sake of making up BS. But we set the record straight eventually.
One time, a friend of mine and I were out. A guy approaches us and starts talking to us. Asks us our names, what did we do for fun...stuff like that.
Just because, I started using a fake swedish accent, and told him we were members of the Olympic Swedish swim team. He knew it was bull****. We knew it was bull****. But he played along, and we all giggled and pretended that I and my friend were members of the Olympic Swedish Swim team.
(By the way, no one would ever buy that we were members of ANY swim team, OR Swedish. We were just playing.)
Personally, I mistrust liars. I’ve known a few who lie about their lives or their past lives, and I ultimately ended up thnking they were pathetic losers.
And people who lie to get themselves out if a jam are weak and dishonest.
If people want to fool themselves that lying hurts no one, and is harmless fun, then, OK. But I will not be your friend. And I imagine others will feel the way I do, as well.
I have known liars who lied to make their lives more interesting.
I make my life more interesting so that I have fun true stories to tell.
I have known liars whose dishonesty is a matter of manipulation, who make up BS to support any point they want to make. And who at the same time insist that they don't ever lie, that they are "bad at it" and who get furious if anyone is ever caught lying to them. The very idea they promote, that they are "incapable" of dishonesty, is inherently dishonest. And if caught and called out on it? "That was different" or "that doesn't count" or they try to turn it around and say, "oh yeah, well you did this and that..." I don't have much patience at all for this.
I believe that most people lie sometimes. Big or small lies, lies told with good or bad intent...most people have lied. Doesn't mean they cannot be trusted, or that they always lie. Says nothing about their nature, other than the fact that they are human. I personally trust someone more if they admit that they have lied, or that they lie sometimes. If they are willing to reflect upon their own behavior, rather than seeing the very idea as a personal attack upon their character, that tells me that they're more REAL and more honest where it counts.
So in my opinion, someone who has lied, and who can be honest about it, is more honest than someone who has lied but insists they never did and never would. I'm not convinced that a person who has never told a lie, is a thing that even exists. If anyone tells me that they never lie, and are always honest, I always think, "Why do you want me to believe that? So I won't question anything you say?" It makes me more skeptical of them.
DH's family were obfuscators. It was very difficult to get exact facts out of any of them. I often thought it came from his father being an immigrant and his mother being first generation American. Best to keep a low profile when you don't know the culture.
But maybe I'm being too generous and they just preferred to communicate that way. Nobody ever knew anything.
I remember as a little girl my mother telling me the story of "The Little Boy who Cried 'Wolf'" and explaining to me why it was important to have a reputation as a truth teller.
She wouldn't have needed to bother. I can't lie to save my soul. Just don't have the knack. I try to fool my family and they catch me every time. For one thing, I can't keep a straight face.
Yes, I have lied. Can't remember when last but I do put a premium on being seen as someone whose word can be counted on.
Lying can really create a mess. That was another thing Mom used to say - "Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive." A quote from a play by Sir Walter Scott.
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