Liars

This summer, Michelle and I have been teaching a series to our college group on relationships. We have a great group of young adults that are mixed together from backgrounds such as financial, social, spiritual, and also personal maturity. Its been an absolute blessing to spend time with them. Not only do we teach them, but they teach us as well.

Sunday night one of them was scheduled to teach, but a lesson that I started in the morning went long, and we decided to carry it over. I talked about lying. Specifically, I played a clip from Radio Lab, titled "Deception". Its a documentary about lying, pathological liars, and the science behind lying. The clip that I played was about a con-woman who had gotten into the life of a friend of the producer. The phrase that I focused on was, "...and he has never had any close friends since...."

Think about that for a minute....

Imagine that where you are in this world right now, you would not ever develop a new intimate relationship! The only "serious" relationships you will have, are those that you presently have, for the rest of your life! As you can imagine this didn't sit very well with early 20s. They have their entire life ahead of them! And that was the point: Don't lie!

I know you might find this hard to believe, but I come across a little, let's say, harsh periodically. I have been called blunt. Emotionless. Unsympathetic. Its very rare that those that know me ask me how their new hairdos look. My reason for this, is that I do everything I can to not lie to people. And what amazes me sometimes is how difficult it is! Some people just don't want to be told the truth. They have an answer in their head, and that is what they want to hear. When they don't hear "that", they get their feelings hurt. And what I find absolutely fascinating is that something as simple as an opinion about a dress can have SERIOUS ramifications later! But the truth is, I am no different. As blunt and honest as I am, I also find myself asking people opinions when I already have the answer in my head.

On the other side of the coin, we don't want to hurt peoples' feelings. As one of our young adults mentioned Sunday night,"I understand I am not telling the ACTUAL truth, but it is just a white lie, and I don't want to hurt their feelings." And its that type of perception that is completely misunderstood. The effects of lying on a relationship are sum totals of many lies. The more lies I tell, the more you don't trust me. I keep telling you over and over that, "you look great in that dress", and eventually you catch me one time. You aren't impacted by that one lie! All the rest come with it!

My own personal opinion is that lying has its roots somewhere with the fear of confrontation. I am definitely no psychologist, but that seems to be rather obvious. "If I can get out of this immediate situation, then maybe I can regroup later to defend my actions!" Or more than likely, I will avoid you like the plague from now on, because I don't want to to talk about this particular topic!

Towards the end of the radiolab podcast, the hosts interview a guy who studies lying. He gives the "professional definition of lying", talks about how bluffing in poker is not lying, due to the fact that all competitors know that part of the game is bluffing, and he also talked about a fascinating experiment he did a few years back: He didn't lie for an entire year!

Imagine that for a minute.

"Honey, do I look fat in this dress?"
"Do you like my hair cut?"
"Would you like to come over? I am having a party tonight."
"What did you think of my presentation?"

In this year, as he put it, he learned how to speak eloquently so as to do the least harm on some one's feelings. The cliffnotes version is: avoid answering directly, but be honest. It is actually possible to answer someone without hurting their feelings. You have to KNOW them. By that, I mean you have to have a pretty good idea of how they will react to the news. He talks about how difficult it was to choose his words carefully. He says it was literally exhausting sometimes.

And that is my point: its easier to lie. If we just tell them what they want to hear, they won't be disappointed.

But is that really true?

If we just go over for a few minutes, be fashionably late, speak to 5 people, agree on the hand signals with the spouse to get us out of there, and then politely leave after the 2nd person who leaves, then they will be happy when they talk to us about their party on Monday. Even though we never wanted to go in the first place.

If we invite 40 people into our home when it can only accommodate 20, because some of those 20 have relationships with a select few that we don't want to associate with, but if they found out about our party and were not invited they would have their feelings hurt. So, we over invite people with the thought that they will be in our home and we may not actually have to speak to them because there are so many people at our party!

Whew! Its exhausting!

I think we just need to be honest. We need to spend some energy and choose our words carefully. We also need to NOT have high expectations of what we want to hear. It goes both ways. Again, relationships are two way streets. Let's treat them that way.