The Liars Among Us

As a general rule, I try to be as honest and authentic as possible in all of my interactions with other people. It bothers me even when I tell white lies, so I avoid it whenever I can. However, there are a couple notable exceptions to this rule:

1. If I’m joking, it doesn’t count. I’m reminded of the time my friend David organized a birthday dinner for me, and told me to wear kitchen gloves “or I would be sorry.” At the time I was a naive young soul, so I followed his instructions and wore yellow kitchen gloves to Maggiano’s. The waitress was bemused and just laughed when I asked her if I needed to wear them during dinner. Maybe it was then that I decided that I, too, shall start making ridiculous statements to see if other people will do silly things. Or maybe it was after David convinced me to do a karate kick as a sobriety test…but I digress.

My go-to in recent years is when somebody arrives late to a group gathering where we’re doing icebreakers (as often happens in church group settings), and I say something to the effect of, “We’ve just finished introducing ourselves and sharing our deepest, darkest secrets, and it’s your turn.” If I wanted to be more believable I’d prompt them to first share their most embarrassing moment, but I usually just tell people I’m joking before they share anything substantive.

2. If we’re playing a social deduction game where lying is basically required, all bets are off. It started with playing mafia in college, evolved to secret identity board games like Avalon / Werewolf, and has culminated in Among Us, the game du jour all the cool kids are streaming nowadays. I will be the first to tell you that I’m a terrible liar, although it didn’t matter in those amateur college games of mafia. Even in our church group sanctioned games I was more or less okay, but now that I’m often playing with uh, people with greater lying capabilities than my own, it’s become glaringly obvious that this is an area of opportunity for me.

Despite being philosophically opposed to lying myself, I find it fascinating learning how people lie, if for nothing else than to be aware of when people might be lying to you. It’s also far less consequential in a game like Among Us than in real life, which makes it the perfect occasion to practice both lying and discerning when people lie.

I’ve always thought that it’s more difficult to tell the truth than to lie, at least to the people you care about. Maybe it’s because I’m opinionated, don’t want to hurt people’s feelings, and want people to like me.

After playing an impostor in Among Us, though, I realized that it’s actually way harder to be a good liar. You need to fabricate a believable story for what you’ve been doing, be a good actor, remember what lies and half-truths you’ve told, and be able to talk your way out of any accusations people are throwing your way…it takes skill and I am simultaneously impressed and a little scared by those who do it well.

Of course, lying in a make-believe game is different than lying in real life. I want to say that it’s more important to be truthful than to lie in real life, but the answer is probably more nuanced than that. In recent years I’ve been practicing (and sometimes failing) to be honest and kind at the same time. Often it means not telling the whole truth because it’s not helpful in the moment or, as a purely hypothetical example, you don’t want people to know how judgmental you really are.

Since the best lies typically contain some element of truth, I wonder if there’s actually more overlap between being a good liar and truth-teller than you’d think, with intent being the key differentiator. People often say that the devil’s in the details, and I think that applies to telling lies and truths alike: which and how much detail you share, and what you leave out. Don’t get me wrong — intent matters, but it also matters how you sell whatever version of the truth you’re communicating.

I’m reminded of the courtroom scene in “A Few Good Men” when Jack Nicholson tells Tom Cruise, “You can’t handle the truth!” I know I can relate to that sentiment, and in certain situations might prefer to have the truth diluted in service to my feelings.

A friend of mine moved recently, and after sending me the Zillow link to their new apartment told me, “I only want to hear that it looks amazing, because that’s what I need right now.” I obliged, “It looks nice!!” (Always use more than one exclamation point if you want to be convincing.)

For me personally, I can think of two scenarios when I might not want the full, unadulterated truth:

1. If I wasn’t meeting expectations at work
2. If I wasn’t invited to an event I wanted to be invited to

In both cases I’d probably prefer a gentler version of the truth, or even a half-truth.

When it comes to being the one telling the truth, though, I use the following two questions to guide what I share:

1. Is it helpful?
2. If I were in the other person’s shoes, how much of the truth would I want to know?

For those of you who read to this point, I’m curious:

• Is it easier for you to tell the truth or to lie?
• In what situations would you prefer a “gentler version of the truth, or even a half-truth?”
• In what situations do you lie?