18 July 2007

On Little White Lies

Lying is easy. It always seems so harmless at the time.

But then you have to remember what you said the last time you lied.
And then you have to support it by adding more lies.
And then you discover all the things you now have to hide.

Soon you're making a whole separate persona that isn't you.
All your friends are friends of the persona, and not you.
Everyone new you meet through those friends will also meet the persona, and not you.

It's isolating and exhausting, keeping that persona from crumbling, knowing that even you may no longer know you at all.
Knowing that the longer it stays the harder it will fall.
Knowing when that fall does come, it will probably destroy them all.

Lying is hard. It will kill you, slowly, from inside.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think it's rather uncommon that a person go so far in lying that an entire new persona emerges ;). Most people lie about small things to not hurt other people.

And then there is the fact that most people have another persona that they let people see. Most people hide their inner self for others. Even to friends. It's a form of protection. Especially if you have been hurt by people calling themselves a friend.

It's different on the net, because you can protect yourself by not revealing your true name and you can hide by just go offline. But you can't do that IRL. That's why most people have an inner self and a facade.

I have only met a person once IRL that totally made up his entire life. And he was a mythoman and lost some of his friends when things fell apart. But most of them stayed. Because the core of him had been him after all.

Lying can probably hurt you. But the truth can be devastating too. Sometimes it is better to lie until the right moment for the truth.

I rather choose to not say anything if I can't tell the truth. It's easier ;)

Anonymous said...

Tiny lies don't do much harm, but a lot of little lies will.

I don't think I could be friends with someome who constantly lies. It would be just too tiring to follow.

MWT said...

Yeah, that's kind of the point. Each individual one doesn't seem like it does much, but they build on each other. If someone calls out the first lie, suddenly there needs to be more lies to defend it. It's like death by thousand paper cuts.