Thinking About Lying
I've been thinking about my friend tonight. Let's call him Clive. (That's not, in fact, his name. So I'm not being ironic here, I'm actually trying to protect someone's privacy. I'm just using the name Clive because I like Clive Owen. Ahem. Anyway.) I met Clive about four years ago. Clive has a beautiful girlfriend who he has been dating for almost three years and living with for over two. I've never met her. She is the extremely jealous type and Clive is not really allowed to have female friends. Which is funny because Clive is a huge flirt and I'm pretty sure I can't possibly be his only female friend.
Anyway, I used to get really irritated at Clive for calling me and meeting up with me on the sly. His girlfriend would call him when he was with me innocently having a coffee and all of a sudden my name became "Ali" or "Stevie" or something. It was really not cool. But as time passed, I sort of accepted that those were the terms of our friendship and I didn't really want to rock his boat by insisting that I meet his girlfriend or something or calling him at times when I knew it was likely he was with her. In fact, I never call him at all - I just sort of wait for him to pop up every now and again.
So. Clive is lying to his girlfriend about me. The lie is completely innocuous - Clive is definitely not cheating on his girlfriend with me. But he is lying nonetheless. Clive feels completely justified in lying to his girlfriend about me: I am nothing more than a friend and there's just no reason to tick off his girlfriend. "Janet, all guys do it."
But what about relationships of the boyfriend/girlfriend, husband/wife kind? Does it become more important to lie about things that can hurt the other person in order to protect the other person's feeling? Or is that wrong, and if you are lying, are you really protecting yourself? Is it really imperative that you be completely honest, or in reality is it always necessary to cover ugly truths with pretty lies?
I belong to the completely honest school of thought on this one. Oh, of course I've lied to my boyfriends here and there about random stupid things - usually in the first week post get-back-together-after- a-breakup. And I'm a bad liar so I've always either gotten caught or confessed eventually because the burden of carrying the lie is too annoying and stupid. So I think I can say that I am completely honest. The problem seems to be that I expect and demand complete honesty in return. Often boyfriends seem to translate my demand into "You are invading my privacy!" and "Why do I have to explain my life to you?"
I wondered after that conversation - if his relationship was a relationship in which he would not hide a friendship with another woman - maybe his relationship would be one where he could do the marriage thing. I don't mean Clive doesn't want to marry his girlfriend because he lies to her. But maybe the woman that makes Clive feel like he couldn't, wouldn't lie to her, is the woman that Clive will feel like marrying.
Does that make sense? Maybe if you can lie to a woman about something concrete, maybe that means everything can be a lie. Like Clive. Day after day, driving his girlfriend to work, picking her up, staring at her across the dinner table, snuggling with her watching TV, waiting for her to get tired of not getting proposed to. Clive going to bed, night after night, with his girlfriend that he is not feeling marriage with but also not ready to let go. Is Clive's silly lie about his friendship with me a flag for deeper issues - a reflection of a dead-end relationship? A relationship that's just going through the motions?
Anyway, I used to get really irritated at Clive for calling me and meeting up with me on the sly. His girlfriend would call him when he was with me innocently having a coffee and all of a sudden my name became "Ali" or "Stevie" or something. It was really not cool. But as time passed, I sort of accepted that those were the terms of our friendship and I didn't really want to rock his boat by insisting that I meet his girlfriend or something or calling him at times when I knew it was likely he was with her. In fact, I never call him at all - I just sort of wait for him to pop up every now and again.
So. Clive is lying to his girlfriend about me. The lie is completely innocuous - Clive is definitely not cheating on his girlfriend with me. But he is lying nonetheless. Clive feels completely justified in lying to his girlfriend about me: I am nothing more than a friend and there's just no reason to tick off his girlfriend. "Janet, all guys do it."
* * *
Oh, I don't think it's only men who lie. Women definitely do too. For instance, I've also observed a certain person who lies with what I consider to be alarming frequency and ease about almost everything. It's almost like there is no absolute truth in her world. Instead, the truth is whatever sounds best at the moment, and it would be pointless to call her out on the obvious wrongness of whatever she is saying, because she would insist that she is telling the truth. And I think whatever she insists actually does become the truth to her in her own head.* * *
I think lying is bad. But I'm not some moral absolutist about it. I know that polite society demands insincerities. For instance, I can't show certain people exactly how I feel about them - instead I have to act amiable in order to maintain a civil relationship with them for whatever reason. Friendships are also maintained by small fables - often the job of a friend is to offer a sympathetic story, rather than to dump the cold hard facts on one's head. Usually the friend is quite aware of the cold hard facts anyway, but they need some support.
But what about relationships of the boyfriend/girlfriend, husband/wife kind? Does it become more important to lie about things that can hurt the other person in order to protect the other person's feeling? Or is that wrong, and if you are lying, are you really protecting yourself? Is it really imperative that you be completely honest, or in reality is it always necessary to cover ugly truths with pretty lies?
I belong to the completely honest school of thought on this one. Oh, of course I've lied to my boyfriends here and there about random stupid things - usually in the first week post get-back-together-after- a-breakup. And I'm a bad liar so I've always either gotten caught or confessed eventually because the burden of carrying the lie is too annoying and stupid. So I think I can say that I am completely honest. The problem seems to be that I expect and demand complete honesty in return. Often boyfriends seem to translate my demand into "You are invading my privacy!" and "Why do I have to explain my life to you?"
* * *
Let's go back to my friend Clive. Clive's girlfriend wants him to marry her. He has been talking marriage for almost a year. Last Christmas he told me he was looking for rings. Eight months later, he has bought a new house and a new car, but no ring. He told me his girlfriend is starting to get antsy. So. He really cares about his girlfriend. They get along. They live together well. But for some reason, he's just not feeling the marriage thing with her. He doesn't know why. He doesn't know what to do. I told him that he can't expect her to wait around forever. He half-grinned, half-grimaced, and told me that he knows that already. He said he thinks that maybe he's just waiting for her to bounce.
I wondered after that conversation - if his relationship was a relationship in which he would not hide a friendship with another woman - maybe his relationship would be one where he could do the marriage thing. I don't mean Clive doesn't want to marry his girlfriend because he lies to her. But maybe the woman that makes Clive feel like he couldn't, wouldn't lie to her, is the woman that Clive will feel like marrying.
Does that make sense? Maybe if you can lie to a woman about something concrete, maybe that means everything can be a lie. Like Clive. Day after day, driving his girlfriend to work, picking her up, staring at her across the dinner table, snuggling with her watching TV, waiting for her to get tired of not getting proposed to. Clive going to bed, night after night, with his girlfriend that he is not feeling marriage with but also not ready to let go. Is Clive's silly lie about his friendship with me a flag for deeper issues - a reflection of a dead-end relationship? A relationship that's just going through the motions?
* * *
I don't know. I don't know, I don't know. I do know that someone like Clive... well... it's my biggest and most horrific fear that I may be trapped in a relationship by someone like him. Not that he is bad, at all. He loves his girlfriend; I've never heard him say a single negative thing about her. He is always telling me how great she is. So. I don't know. Maybe I read too much into things - maybe I just take things too seriously.
posted by J. at 12:42 AM
2 Comments:
Tell the truth to everyone except your girlfriend and the cops.
--Jack Nicholson
But if the cops or your girlfriend knows you are lying you are screwed. I can't speak for cops, but girlfriends always know. Never mind how - it may be a phone bill carelessly left around, or a post-it note with a telling note-to-self, or circumstantial evidence that is too compelling to ignore. It may be the look in someone's eye or their overreaction to a simple question. Whatever the case - trust me, girlfriends know.
My big question is - what do you do when you know for a fact that someone has lied to you, and not just lied, but lied forcefully, and with extreme anger that you dared to doubt her? Do you move on, because there is no point in forcing that person to tell you the truth, and just try to cope with living with a lie as best as possible? Or do force the issue in order to have the truth openly exposed and acknowledged, even though you already know the truth anyway?
* * *
I think I finally realized why I think lying in a relationship is so bad. It's because there is no good reason to lie! Why do you lie to your lover?
You might lie because you are just a small person who doesn't value truth and honesty and integrity and if lying to your lover is the easier course to take, you'll take it. This is obviously bad. I hope that this isn't usually the case.
Or maybe you lie because you do not feel that your lover will immediately understand you with regard to whatever it is that you lied about, and you're not willing to discuss or explain yourself. This is bad to me because it shows a lack of communication or desire to communicate. This in turn seems to indicate that your lover's approval or respect or happiness is not important to you. Or, perhaps it simply indicates an unwillingness to compromise. Rather than telling a truth that would reveal a difference of opinion or position that would have to be remedied by a discussion and a coming together onto a middle ground, you lie because you know you can't or won't or don't want to compromise. So rather than reveal the difference you cover up your position completely.
I don't know. Anyway. Whatever.
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