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I am horrible at lying and I don’t understand how people can do it so easily. Not just the instant creativity of coming up with something plausible, but then they have to remember that AND whom they told which lie to, in case that gets referenced or brought up later. How on earth do you manage something like that?
As someone who “lies for fun” (eg. As a joke) it’s honestly all about the delivery. It doesn’t have to be plausible. If you say everything with a straight face it throws people off.
Lie as little as possible, and always tell them to different groups that won’t discuss them with each other.
Source: “Why didn’t you make your homework?”
I got really good at telling little lies because my parents were the type of shitheads to interrogate and blame me for literally any problem. they would refuse to believe me when I told the truth so I found it more convenient to tell them what I thought they’d more likely believe. I think this is a good skill to have but it has fucked me over before because I used to default to doing that with any authority figure.
This. Except I’m not limited to authority figures and that’s sometimes very hard to handle. Like if a friend wants to invite me on monday but I already have something planned with another friend that same day I sometimes feel like giving the real reason would make them jealous. Yes, I know I shouldn’t do this, and I’m working on it, but it’s not easy. It’s especially hard when the real reason is something like “spending time with you in particular is very stressful for me and I can’t handle it”.
There are benevolent lies that I have told, and I follow a different method. Whenever one of these lies has to be told, I start by working backwards. I figure out what the goal of the lie is, and then what the lie should be. I try to figure out how to work that into my actual life. And then, that simply becomes reality. I dont have to remember who Ive told it to because its what I tell anyone curious. If people meet up and talk, they all have the matching story.
If anyone ever told a believable lie and then called you gullible, that’s stupid.
The point of “messing with someone” is to toe the edge of what is believable to see how they react. If you end up straying into the realm of “totally unbelievable” without an incredulous reaction, then the label of “gullible” is deserved.
It’s like a friendly duel of wits. An opportunity to sharpen each other’s blades without any stakes. Probably a social survival mechanism.
A funny one my friend pulled on another friend:
“Did you know the word gullible isn’t in the dictionary?”
“Wait really?”
As a kid, I had a small dictionary, so I checked whether “gullible” was in it in order to mess with my little sister. It wasn’t there, but I still got in trouble when my mom overheard me telling my sister, “Did you know gullible is not in this dictionary?”
I was miffed because I was telling the truth.
It’s like a friendly duel of wits.
Wow! How fascinating! No wonder I don’t want friends!
Duel with yourselves, liars.
