Lying or withholding information?
Are you a liar, or are you keeping information "safe"?
I am writing this half-pissed so let’s get this out of the way.
“A liar is a liar is a liar”
If you’re presented with the opportunity to say the truth and you decide against it, you’ve just lied. Finito. End of post.
Okay, maybe not end of post.
Earth to Fouad🔊
Now that I’m back to regular programming, the idea that this is even a discussion didn’t sit well with me. It’s not rocket science and it’s not that hard.
Color me naive, but I have spent a lot of my time believing people I felt had no reason to keep the truth from me. I quickly realized I was wrong. If nothing else, people look out for themselves. I can’t blame them, I look out for myself too, I just felt you could be out for yourself without impeding others.
Lying is common
If you live your life expecting the best from everyone, you might be surprised to find out how commonly people lie. It’s the law of the jungle—survival. People will do anything to survive. If they feel something they hold dear is threatened, they’d say anything to get out of it. So how mad can I be? Truly.
It’s pretty hard to find someone that lies, and the lying is not a representation of a bigger problem at hand. Is there a chance someone tells a lie but they are still a good person all-round? Maybe. People lie for different reasons and it does not mean you’re a bad person, it just means you’re a liar.
This isn’t the case most times though, a liar that has lied before will probably lie again. To quote a very informal saying I heard a long time ago:
“If you let that man shenan once, he gon’ shenan again (shenanigan)”
Lying to protect
People usually lie to protect something. This could be themselves or a much larger cause. I think my displeasure stems from when people tell lies unnecessarily, when there’s no immediate benefit to telling that lie and it’s just pointless.
Telling a lie to protect someone else from undeserved probing, or to avoid hurting someone’s feelings is a smaller, pardonable version (in my opinion) of a lie and we’ve all been there. We’ve told small and harmless lies because we want a situation to go a bit smoother. Issues start to unfurl when you start telling more lies to cover up your previous lies.
Dealing with liars
I avoid them, if I can. I run away. I have enough stressors in my life and adding a human being to that list is scary. My phone stresses me out, I can just turn it off. My work stresses me out, I can take a breather. A human stresses me out, I run.
Humans are also unpredictable so you think you know someone and they pull out an uno-reverse on you and you’re left stranded. If we share a space and I cannot avoid you, I’m pretty good at blocking people out. It’s like white noise when they talk because I know half of what they’re saying is false anyways.
If you can avoid telling a lie, please do. Don’t even get me started on non-comedians that tell lies for laughs. A headache is creeping up on me, brilliant.
End of rant.