Now we got problems and I don’t think we can solve them. You made a really deep cut and baby, now we got bad blood. –Taylor Swift, Bad Blood

One of the things I try really hard to embrace in my life is honesty. I love the mentality of being ultimately genuine and making a habit of telling nothing but the whole truth. As such, I refuse to sit here and claim that attending Social Work school has made me this terribly open-minded person. Sure, I’m mostly kind and thoughtful. I make it a relatively large priority to never judge people on things like their skin color or their income. I try to hear all the facts before I completely lose it and turn myself loose like Taylor Swift in the Bad Blood video. Sometimes I can just laugh and pretend like I didn’t hear that last little unnecessary lie, especially with my friends, because I don’t want to embarrass them.

 

I am primarily tender hearted and sweet but there are other times when I refuse to just let things go by. It’s like, listen, friends: I want you to know that I know. You know what I mean? I get to a point where I can’t just sit there and let a person insult me. I’m not that stupid; I’ve caught you in a straight up lie and now you’re dead to me.   

As of late, I would say that I have this really annoying tendency to let people take advantage of me and, as much as I absolutely hate to admit it, this can sometimes make me look pretty stupid. I’m not one of those people who is super proud and can’t admit when they’re wrong; On the contrary, over the years, I’ve actually become pretty good at it. And sometimes, it even works to my benefit because there is nothing people love more than a woman who can admit when she’s wrong. There is nothing more endearing than an individual who is just humble enough to admit that they’ve been beat. Ordinarily, I would take full advantage of the compliment and bow out of the fight but today things are different. 

Today I am not one of those people. 

A storyteller makes things up to help other people; a liar makes things up to help himself. –Daniel Wallace

You know how when you first start dating someone and you’re just beginning to learn who they are and what they’re about? Everything is so exciting because you’re on this expedition where you’re learning all these interesting new things about the boy across the table from you. In these beginning stages, it feels as though you could probably just ramble on for hours and never get bored. All the stories are new and fragrant, all the sensations feel like you’re finally, truly living. You’re helping each other build this great, new establishment where all the slates are clean. You haven’t heard the same story twenty times and you don’t know where the journey will lead you. Everything is sparkling, like the pink champagne in your glass, and you know that you can ride through the bumps on this roller coaster as long as you’re able to stare into those amazing brown eyes across from you. 

I think the best part about being in a relationship is learning things about each other. Maybe it’s just me. It’s time well spent.      

But you know how sometimes those amazing people can unexpectedly slip up while they’re telling those fascinating stories? Maybe it’s something small like they don’t put their napkin in their lap when they eat or they have to savor their barbeque sauce so they lick their fingers at the table. Maybe it’s something seemingly innocent like a comment about how they don’t like your favorite sports team or the color Portofino you’re wearing. (Two things, honestly, they should probably keep to themselves.) Or maybe it’s something really annoying like lying about what their girlfriend’s name is, or perhaps even the fact that they have a girlfriend.

 Or far worse, something so pathetic that the miniscule lie makes you never want to talk to them again: like their age.

Whatever the case, whether it is something incidental or monumental, it causes a shift in the relationship. This man who once left you rapt, who touched you deep in your soul, now disgusts you. That one seemingly innocent comment he just had to make, that one little white lie he just had to tell, had colossal effects on your future. And while it may seem like something so miniscule to someone else, it’s something that you’ll just keep replaying in your head over and over. Maybe they’re right: it was painfully miniscule on the scale of how happy he made you. But you have to remind yourself: it was so small. So why even say it at all? Why lie about something so meaningless? Why not just put the goddamn napkin in his lap?  

The man lying on the sofa seemed friendly. But how friendly could he really be if he was a liar? –Jarod Kintz, 

I will never understand why people think it’s better to falsify information. As if we can’t just punch your name into Google and find out every single piece of information we could ever want to know. Today’s consumer is far too sophisticated, or technology way too advanced. It just seems sort of pointless to fudge facts, don’t you think? I hate to put a label on men but if I had a dollar for every time a man told me a pointless lie, I could buy the new Range Rover Sport I’ve always wanted. 

One time, an ex-boyfriend told me that he was working as an undercover operative for the Narcotics Team at the police department. Another time, he told his co-workers that I had a brother who was a model with a reoccurring role on some crappy show on MTV. (That dumbass lie inevitably made its way back to me, seeing as I was clearly related to a celebrity and everybody always wants a piece of fame…) A completely separate time, he told me he was in class all day when he was actually at the Ramada Inn having an intimate Valentine’s Day with his ex-girlfriend. 

One time, another man I was dating told me he didn’t have a girlfriend but that he was splitting custody of his dog with his ex-girlfriend. Another time, he shifted his story from “She’s my ex-girlfriend,” to “Okay, she’s actually my current girlfriend”. A completely separate time, he told me her name was something I can’t remember when it was actually Diana. (The internet people: it exists for a reason.)

One time, this man I know told his wife that he had to move out of their house because commuting to his job would be a drag and super expensive. Another time, he told her that he was living with some random Portuguese man with a porn addiction, when in reality he was living with some old, female hospital employee. A completely separate time, he claimed to be on a business trip but she learned he was lying when a traffic violation showed up for him in her mailbox. (If you’re going to lie about where you are, it’s probably best to abide by all traffic laws.)

To be brutally honest, I feel like these people should be wearing nice embroidered t-shirts that say, “Don’t listen to me; I’m a jackass.”   

Moral of the Crazy: I’m not saying that I’ve never fibbed. I’m not going to sit here and pretend like I’ve never lied to save my own shapely rear-end, or that the lies I’ve told didn’t hurt people. I cannot, in good conscience, pretend like I’m a perfect person, with a pristine track record, like I’m this holy individual who has never lied. 

Because that would be a lie. And I ain’t about that life.

But what I am saying is that we’re all a work in progress. Sure, I have lied. I’ve lied a bunch of times. I’ve lied to my parents, I’ve lied in my past relationships, I’ve lied to get out of work, and I’ve lied to myself but I recognized what I was doing. I know it’s wrong and I don’t make a habit of it. I didn’t make it all the way to twenty-nine without learning something. The lesson is: Lying isn’t cute after age like, six. It hurts people and it’s disgusting. And if I can be honest, it sort of makes a person look like they clearly have nothing to offer. If they had, they wouldn’t have to make shit up, am I right?

I’ve come to realize that there is nothing more valuable than honesty. There is nothing more coveted than a person you can trust. There are some people in my life, and I won’t issue names, that I really, really love and care about. These people are good people; people who have made me laugh and sometimes, thoroughly enjoy myself. They have gotten drunk with me, told me stories, and raved about how thankful they are to have me in their lives. 

But these people, friends, they wouldn’t know the truth if it backhanded them with a phonebook. The saddest part of all of this is that half of the things they say, I will never believe. What is even sadder is that there is a good chance that some of their stories could be true, but even if they were, I still wouldn’t believe them. They have stacked the odds against themselves, set a precedent so ludicrous that even I, an unsuspecting, nice person, wouldn’t believe a word they say. 

For people that I’m close to, this is really disappointing because in all honesty, I feel like I don’t even know them. And I probably never will. And even if, in some alternate universe, I did take the time to learn their entire biography, how could I really decipher what was true and what wasn’t? It’s too stressful. The fact that you distrust a person enough to Google them is just terrible. Life isn’t supposed to be a Shakespearean play. It either is and or isn’t. 

I guess all we can do is just try to be a bit better every day. I think a relatively decent rule of thumb is if you genuinely care about someone, you want to be honest with them. I mean, I understand that in the beginning, you want to impress them. You may feel inclined to massage your stories a little to make yourself look shinier but listen, if they’re going to judge you on your reality, they probably aren’t worth that Original Penguin Daddy-O polo you’re wearing.

You can believe whatsoever you like, but the truth remains the truth, no matter how sweet the lie may taste. –Michael Bassey Johnson