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What Are Your Thoughts On All The Lying?
Meh. I guess it's all good if it makes people feel better about themselves. 9%  9%  [ 12 ]
I don't like it, but most people do, so I do it even though it conflicts with my instincts. 15%  15%  [ 19 ]
I try to do the white lie thing, but I just suck at it. 22%  22%  [ 29 ]
I'm so bad at lying that the mere thought of trying it makes me anxious. I prefer honesty. 26%  26%  [ 34 ]
NO WHITE LIES! Give me the truth even if it hurts, and I'll do the same for you. 28%  28%  [ 37 ]
Total votes : 131

siuan
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11 Dec 2007, 1:23 am

I'm currently reading a book called The OASIS Guide to Asperger Syndrome. So far, I like it. But I came across a point which confuses and frustrates me, and apparently proves I have a problem with "theory of mind".

Earlier today I saw a video of Britney Spears in a blog someone had written about her stealing a lighter. In the background you can hear a member of the paparazzi speaking to her in a patronizing manner, saying something like, "Britney, are you sad?" to which she replies, "Do I look sad?" to which the paparazzi guy replies, "Oh Britney, you're beautiful...you always look beautiful." Now, I have no hate for Britney, but most people can't stop talking about what a mess she is. I have no flair for fashion, but I do know that you should leave the house with pants. So this paparazzi guy was feeding her a line of crap, which she happily lapped up like a moron. So apparently she likes being lied to...like every NT I've ever met. Now, I don't want to hear, "Wow, you look like a super bag of ass today, Siuan," but I don't want to be lied to either.

Which brings me to the OASIS book. In it, it speaks of theory of mind, and how people with AS have difficulty understanding why white lies are important/necessary and why people find small talk important. It cites why one should discuss something they care nothing about as if they have an actual interest, and how when people ask you a question they may not want an honest answer - even if they KNOW they look like an idiot. WHY!!???

If I ask a question, I want an honest answer. I've learned to speak NTese, thanks to a family of extreme NTs, but I don't like all of the dishonesty and fake-ness. It seems SO counter-intuitive to me to send my kids off to therapy because society wants them to learn to lie to make other people feel good. I don't want to feel good based on lies. To me, it's like building a house on a shoddy foundation. Why build yourself up on something that will collapse?

Now let me tell you why I fell in love with my husband. We met one night in a place neither of us wanted to be. We liked each other right away, something drew us t each other. His first words to me were to ask what the medallion around my neck was. It was a St. Christopher medallion given to me by a friend (I'm not Catholic, the friend was). Anyway, I asked, "Do you believe in that stuff?" meaning the saints. His reply? "I don't believe in bullsh*t." And he won my heart, right there in that instant. Why? Not because of his belief (or lack thereof) in some saint - but his HONESTY. Now, he could have figured me for a devout Catholic, wearing that medal, and he didn't make up some line of garbage to win me over. He just told the TRUTH! I love that about him (most of the time, ha) but I know many would hate it. I just don't get why.


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ToadOfSteel
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11 Dec 2007, 1:50 am

I agree with you on all points... and yet, due to "conditioning" from my younger years, I am now a pathological liar at times... I hate it, and hate myself for it...

There was even one time when this one guy was pointing out some AS-age that I do... he basically said I came off as a narcissist, and he said it in a rather pissed off tone. Now I know for a fact that I don't love myself, I just talk about myself alot because I don't know how to talk about other people... anyway I digress...

The point is that by the time an nt was willing to say it like it was, he was apparently uber-fed-up with me, and finally just said that to shut me up. I merely responded with an "okay" and adapted accordingly... he was actually surprised by that move...



siuan
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11 Dec 2007, 1:56 am

ToadOfSteel wrote:
I agree with you on all points... and yet, due to "conditioning" from my younger years, I am now a pathological liar at times... I hate it, and hate myself for it...

There was even one time when this one guy was pointing out some AS-age that I do... he basically said I came off as a narcissist, and he said it in a rather pissed off tone. Now I know for a fact that I don't love myself, I just talk about myself alot because I don't know how to talk about other people... anyway I digress...

The point is that by the time an nt was willing to say it like it was, he was apparently uber-fed-up with me, and finally just said that to shut me up. I merely responded with an "okay" and adapted accordingly... he was actually surprised by that move...


I suppose AS can seem sort of narcissistic. I can SO relate to what you're saying about talking about myself because it's what I know. Me and my special interests tend to dominate conversations that I have. And really, lol, I'm not so in love with myself either :lol:


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ToadOfSteel
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11 Dec 2007, 2:05 am

That's one thing I've noticed about as communication... Each person responds in turn with "I .........." monologue about their personal experiences, because that's what we are most comfortable talking about (since "I/me" is the topic I know best)

Just because I know myself doesn't mean I love myself, however...



scumsuckingdouchebag
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11 Dec 2007, 2:26 am

Quote:
and yet, due to "conditioning" from my younger years, I am now a pathological liar at times... I hate it, and hate myself for it...


I know how that is. I developed the ability to lie around age 8 and got very carried away with it after. Even still, I'm not a good liar despite how often I practiced that skill. And I hate it. It's stupid and I wasn't fooling anyone.



ToadOfSteel
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11 Dec 2007, 2:29 am

Now, I've been able to fool people (mostly my as-heavy mother's side of the family...)

The really scary thing is, if you get good enough at it, you start to like it... hence why I call all lying pathological...



2ukenkerl
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11 Dec 2007, 6:42 am

Heck, part of what I hate about my current job is an idiot kept coming to me and telling me about some MAJOR error, and I basically tell him HE did the wrong thing, and I find another problem and explain it to him and he reports it as a bug HE found. I fix it before he "reports" it, and it just causes a lot of confusion. Ironically, in such a case, I report it before HE does.

My point?

He lies about who found the problem, etc... HECK, EVEN that claiming he can do the job at all is a lie.

Even If I make a mistake, I ADMIT it.

As for "white lies"? My mother FORCES me to say them with her, and many others do also.



RudolfsDad
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11 Dec 2007, 9:53 am

Most NT, to varying degrees, tend to believe what they want to believe, rather than what is actually true. Some NT don't even think about truth very much. It's just not very important to some people to know how things really are. Some NT care only about believing something that makes them happy -- regardless of whether or not it is true. I don't think that people that are like that usually really know that they are believing fictions -- it is more of an unconscious process.

Even people that do care about the truth often find it easy to fool themselves in cases where the truth isn't clear. People particularly want to hear white lies about their appearance. People WANT to believe that they are good looking -- but they need some kind of evidence to justify that belief. The thing is, most people realize that their own perceptions of their appearance can be wrong. So, if they ask a friend "How do I look", and the friend says "You look great" -- they then have the "evidence" they need to support what they want to believe.

Now, of course, we all know about white lies -- we all know that people sometimes say "You look great" when they are really thinking "Oh my God, you're so ugly you make flowers die when you walk past them". But -- since you are asking about another person's opinion, you can't really KNOW for sure what they think of your appearance. If they say "You look great" and they sound convincing, you can mentally resolve the uncertainty in favor of the belief that they are truthfully reporting your awesome good looks.

So, I think that NT sometimes want to hear a white lie when such a lie introduces doubt about something bad that they are afraid might be true. If it is obvious to them that you are telling a white lie, they will often get angry because an obvious white lie doesn't introduce doubt. Worse, an obvious white lie confirms that their worst fears are actually true. If you have a friend that is unusually short and you tell him that he is "tall and handsome" he's going to get mad because it is patently obvious that he isn't tall.

If you tell an ugly friend that she looks great, and you sound convincing, it makes her doubt her belief that she is ugly. She thinks, "Well, maybe I'm not really ugly after all. Maybe I really do look ok and I just need to learn some self confidence."

So, it is not really that people want to hear something good that they know is a lie. It is that a convincing white lie makes people happy because it supports something that they want to believe. If you can make your ugly friend feel beautiful, she will probably really like you because you make her happy.



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11 Dec 2007, 10:45 am

scumsuckingdouchebag wrote:
I know how that is. I developed the ability to lie around age 8 and got very carried away with it after. Even still, I'm not a good liar despite how often I practiced that skill. And I hate it. It's stupid and I wasn't fooling anyone.


Squares are squares...


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insomniakat
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11 Dec 2007, 12:43 pm

I don't get this either, and it's frustrating as hell when you ask someone for a straight answer and you know they are feeding you bull. :roll:


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JWRed
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11 Dec 2007, 1:05 pm

Attitude is everything.

It's all how you view it. We are sensitive people who like to be honest. We think telling lies is a horrible thing. To an NT, telling a white lie is not something they even think about. They tell white lies in the interest of the bigger picture. What is the bigger picture? Forming relationships..

Just don't think about it. That is the answer to 90% of problems. Thinking and analyzing is what brings us down.



siuan
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11 Dec 2007, 1:42 pm

RudolfsDad wrote:
Most NT, to varying degrees, tend to believe what they want to believe, rather than what is actually true. Some NT don't even think about truth very much. It's just not very important to some people to know how things really are. Some NT care only about believing something that makes them happy -- regardless of whether or not it is true. I don't think that people that are like that usually really know that they are believing fictions -- it is more of an unconscious process.

Even people that do care about the truth often find it easy to fool themselves in cases where the truth isn't clear. People particularly want to hear white lies about their appearance. People WANT to believe that they are good looking -- but they need some kind of evidence to justify that belief. The thing is, most people realize that their own perceptions of their appearance can be wrong. So, if they ask a friend "How do I look", and the friend says "You look great" -- they then have the "evidence" they need to support what they want to believe.

Now, of course, we all know about white lies -- we all know that people sometimes say "You look great" when they are really thinking "Oh my God, you're so ugly you make flowers die when you walk past them". But -- since you are asking about another person's opinion, you can't really KNOW for sure what they think of your appearance. If they say "You look great" and they sound convincing, you can mentally resolve the uncertainty in favor of the belief that they are truthfully reporting your awesome good looks.

So, I think that NT sometimes want to hear a white lie when such a lie introduces doubt about something bad that they are afraid might be true. If it is obvious to them that you are telling a white lie, they will often get angry because an obvious white lie doesn't introduce doubt. Worse, an obvious white lie confirms that their worst fears are actually true. If you have a friend that is unusually short and you tell him that he is "tall and handsome" he's going to get mad because it is patently obvious that he isn't tall.

If you tell an ugly friend that she looks great, and you sound convincing, it makes her doubt her belief that she is ugly. She thinks, "Well, maybe I'm not really ugly after all. Maybe I really do look ok and I just need to learn some self confidence."

So, it is not really that people want to hear something good that they know is a lie. It is that a convincing white lie makes people happy because it supports something that they want to believe. If you can make your ugly friend feel beautiful, she will probably really like you because you make her happy.


"Oh my God, you're so ugly you make flowers die when you walk past them." :lol:

I guess I know all the reasons people want to hear white lies, I just fail to understand the reasons. I mean, why do they ask if they look good when they know they look like something out of a carnival - knowing that any positive feedback they get will be lies? Eh, I suppose there is that off chance that the person they are asking might actually find a 500 pound dude in a spandex thong attractive, for example, but likely not. I guess the difference between me and the general population is that I don't ask a question that I don't want an honest answer to. I consider questions to be a means to learn more about my world. If you're lying to me, I'm gathering false information...and OMG I hate false information.

Here's an example. When I was a kid, my grandmother took me to Disney in Florida with some other family members (my parents didn't do stuff like this). Anyhow, it was mostly great, except for my one aunt who always picked at me. I had a major sensory issue with getting my clothes wet, and one of the rides we went on resulted in this. After that, I started asking if the rides were water ones, and my aunt said to me, "I think most of them are, Siuan, you better not go on any of them at all, just to be safe."

I know now she was being a sarcastic b*tch (what kind of adult treats a kid like that anyhow?) but at the time I didn't know if she was being honest or not. I really was bad at knowing the difference. I think people should always say what they mean and mean what they say.


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Greentea
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11 Dec 2007, 2:35 pm

I love it when people complain of horribly uncaring outcomes of their relationships. What did they expect, when they spent years lying to each other?


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scumsuckingdouchebag
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11 Dec 2007, 2:42 pm

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Squares are squares...


Which is precisely why I've stopped doing it!

I remember my mother telling me how to do it. Learned from the best, but never mastered it like she did. Mastering it would require developing social skills that I don't have and never managed to develop in spite of trying.

What is the difference between a 'white lie' and a regular lie anyway? Not good at detecting lies unless I have direct facts to the contrary. Otherwise I never suspect other people of deception. My friend would always point out others' BSing to me and nearly every time I never caught on that they were BSing me. I'm sure many here on WP have that problem.


When people ask me if they look fat in something, I do answer honestly, often not realizing they wanted something else. So how does one detect whether someone wants to tell them a dishonest answer or not? This way, I can simply state "No comment" when someone is wanting false flattery.



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11 Dec 2007, 3:14 pm

How NTs can call this a WHITE lie is beyond me: a group of people were all agreeing the other day when one of them related how she'd told her neighbour some 5 times that she was too busy that day to come for dinner with them. She didn't see the cruelty in misleading someone like this for months, on the contrary - they all called it a white lie.

To me, it's a cowardly form of public relations of the mediocre.


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Icarus_Falling
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11 Dec 2007, 5:14 pm

I try to observe as many meaningless politnesses and social niceties as I am able, for these are but oil to help smooth the running of social interactions.

But much beyond that, I am blunt and honest to a fault. This gets me in trouble sometimes, but there are those who appreciate me for my honesty, so it can be an attribute. On the flipside, I appreciate it when people are honest with me, even when I might not like what I hear.

One trap I refuse to blunder into anymore is the "Do I look fat in this?" trap; my standard response to this question is to yell at the person who asked it for putting me in an invariably no-win situation.

Good fortune,

- Icarus comprehends the reasoning, but still finds the process distasteful...


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