Examples of "Ways We Lie"

“The Ways We Lie”

1)      White lie – If one of my friends was trying on a dress for a school day and turned to me and asked “do I look fat?” I would most definitely tell her something like “no, not at all!” I don’t want to hurt her feelings by telling her that maybe she does look a little fat so it is much easier to tell a simple white lie.

2)      Facades – If you are planning on babysitting a really nice house anytime soon, do not go on a date in a nice suit, pull out a bunch of hundreds and leave a huge tip, then take your date back to the house you’re babysitting and leave out the fact that this is not your house or that you do not usually carry a bunch of hundreds on you.

3)      Deflecting – When my mom asked me what I ended up doing over the weekend and if I finished all my homework, I quickly replied with “mom have I ever told you how much I loved you? By the way the weather is really nice here, is it nice there?”

4)      Ignoring the plain facts – If your boyfriend recently cheated on you and you just found out because his best friend felt so bad for you that he came and told you what his friend did but you stay with him and try to act like nothing happened. You’re ignoring the plain facts.

5)      Stereotypes and clichés – People have a stereotype for what a gay man should be like. I have a friend who everyone has always thought was gay, but never had the guts to ask. He was very feminine and never had a girlfriend before. One time we all sat him down and asked him if he was gay, unfortunately we fell for the stereotype and it turns out he is not gay.

6)      Omission – When homeless people ask me for money, I will usually give them the change in my pocket and add “that’s all I’ve got” but really I have a 5 and a 10 in my pocket, but he doesn’t need to know that.

7)      Groupthink – In order to get my friend to come with us to a party, my other friends and I made up a lie. We said that we had talked to the person having the party and the boy she liked would be there. We knew once she got there she wouldn’t be able to get us all to leave, so as a group we made a pact to stick with the story, until we got to the party at least.

8)      Out-and-out lies – Whenever my mom catches me doing something that I shouldn’t be doing, I always raise my hands and say “it wasn’t me!” Clearly she sees that it was me, but cracking out-and-out lie of a joke always seems to lighten the mood

9)      Dismissal – How many of you have ever said to your parents “I’m freezing!” and they turned to you and say “no you’re not”? Really they are just too busy to deal with the fact that you are cold and they hope that it will keep you from complaining for at least 5 minutes.

10)  Delusion – Sometimes if I really don’t feel like doing my homework and I happen to run out of ink I will go to class the next day and say something like “well my computer ran out of ink and it would have been impossible for me to do my homework.” Because of the simple fact that I really didn’t want to do my homework that bad I lied to my teacher and really convinced myself that there was no other way I could have printed out my assignment.