I originally wanted to call this post “Lying Sucks”, but I figured that Mike had more or less conveyed that with his story about “Glitter”. There are vast differences of opinion on the issue of lying, but there doesn’t seem to be a gender divide. It seems to me more a question of character.
As Mike pointed out, giving someone a fake phone number or saying you’ll call when you have no intention of ever seeing or talking to that person again doesn’t spare her feelings (or his)–it only spares you the discomfort of being around when her feelings (or his) are hurt. It’s a purely selfish move because it doesn’t do a thing for the person who is being lied to except draw out the pain, but it does a lot for the liar. Not only does he escape seeing the other person hurt by the truth, but he manages to make himself feel virtuous by reassuring himself that he “let her down easy”.
Bullshit.
Many men, when the lying discussion arises, pull out the old “Do these pants make me look fat?” discussion. Every man I’ve ever heard this from is entirely confident in his assumption that a woman who asks that question is simply looking for reassurance, and does not want the truth. As a woman, I’m here to tell you: that’s just stupid. If I ask a question like that, it’s because I’m concerned; I think there might be a problem and if there is, I want to correct it before I go out. If you “tell me what I want to hear”, all you’ve done is set me up to go out looking bad. There’s nothing kind or loving about that.
Consider a slightly different but very closely related scenario: you’re out to dinner with your wife and she asks you whether or not she has spinach between her teeth. She does, in fact, have a big, dark wad of bunched up leaf right between her two front teeth. Do you tell her about it so that she can remove it, or do you smile and say, “No, honey, you look great,” and let her walk around for the rest of the evening flashing spinach at everyone she greets?
Answers may vary, of course, but we both know that if the answer is the latter, you’re a jerk. You might be having some good laughs or you might just be a coward, but it’s clear to everyone that you should have told her. Why would you imagine that the pants question would be any different?
Photo credit: aleks from morguefile.com
I so totally, utterly agree with this. My husband agrees with Mike. I don’t ask him anymore. you want the truth? Ask your nine-year-old.
That endures at least a little longer–when I was getting ready for my 25th high school reunion a couple of months ago I looked in the mirror and said, “I should wear eye make-up more often”. My 13-year-old squinted at me for a moment and then said, “Well, I don’t know about THAT.”
In Mike’s defense, he did start the “lying sucks” discussion. We’re pretty much in agreement on this one (though his silence has been deafening on the question of insincere flattery).
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