Last night I saw a very ickle bit of Liar Liar. It got me thinking. How many times does one tell a lie in a day?
By telling a lie, I mean not telling the truth. Non-disclosure doesn't count, so long as you don't tell a porky in not disclosing info (like saying you don't know the answer to something when you do).
It's made me think that people actually lie all the time! Obviously, some more than others. People generally lie to make things easier for themselves. So, something like 'The dog ate my homework' is a lie to make things easier for the liar, to try and stop you getting bollocked. Similar to claiming that you've done more on your final year project ("I've been doing the writing up this week") than you actually have.
Then there are the lies to make something easy for you and the person who you are lying to. This is the begininig of some MSN conversations.
Artem: Lo.
Brenda: Hi
Artem: How are you today?
Brenda: Fine
This is generally how I've found that they start, however there is a chance that Brenda is not actaully fine, but a) doesn't want to talk to Artem about what's making it not fine, b) says she's fine 'cause that's what Artem wants to hear. If she said 'I feel shit, my grandma has just died' or something, then Artem would not know what to say and it would make things awkward.
I don't think that there are many lies that only make things easy for the person being lied to - because by making something easy for them, you are also making it easy for you, if that makes sense.
There are lies to make things sound better than they are, boasty types of lies, or lies to make the story sound better. "I caught a fish and it was this big..." etc, these don't effect anyone, other than possibly give you more kudos.
Anyways, in the last few days I've known the truth and seen people telling the lies. This gets me thinking how often do people lie to me?
I don't think I lie that often - I do know the last lie I told, but only because I made a point of doing it, I have no idea what the non-completely forced lie was. I'm going to try and keep an "Ed's Lie-Log" for a week or so and report back to the blog about how ofter I do actually lie! I won't be posting who I lied to, or what the lie was mind... if you're paranoid then the lie was to you...