“Honesty is the best policy” is a common phrase that you may have heard of a lot growing up, as honesty is generally one of the hallmarks of being a “good” person. We developed the capability to lie at a young age, but not at a level that is sufficient enough to deceive adults, which is how getting caught has led to being shamed out of that bad habit, even if it may have been the right play at the time for getting out of a sticky situation.
It’s normal for people to want to feel good about themselves, since no one really wants to be lied to. It does not feel good to have that rug pulled on you. But if telling the truth punishes you more than sticking to some degree of a lie, then would you really be a bad person for looking out for yourself?
White Lies
“If you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all” is another platitude you’ve likely heard of a lot while developing a moral framework, and it’s one that’s bound to collide with your pursuit of being an honest person.
The reality is, many people can’t handle the truth, let alone any sort of bluntness. If you have someone you care about ask you a question when they really just want validation, it may just be easier to go along with it and give them a generic affirmation or compliment.
Peace is the better option sometimes even if it comes at the expense of telling a lie. They could figure out the truth for themselves another time when they are ready for it.
This logic also applies to any normally overreactive person that may quickly resort to anger before actually fully processing the situation. If you are still in school and drastically underperformed on a test, but still believe in your ability to come back from it, then you might as well just add about 20 points to your score if you’re lucky enough to have your parents going off your word.
Petty Lies
Only telling lies to protect feelings often isn’t enough. This is where petty lies come in, where small details are fudged just enough to still enable the use plausible deniability if you were to get sniffed out.
This becomes really easy to justify once you realize that not everyone is entitled to the whole truth, and that many people will use the whole truth against your self interests. Revealing too much would be like showing your winning cards. Partial lies can be incredibly useful in leaving out damning details while still giving you some truths to lean back on if you were to ever get sniffed out.
Practical Uses For Petty Lies
Petty lies can really come in handy for propping up surface level stats or facts that don’t actually say much about you as a person. Some of these include height, weight, income, and GPA. If you have to save face a little or get your foot in the door, you do whatever you can as long as you aren’t faced with a stringent verification process…
I’m already well above 6 feet tall, yet I still round my height up a half inch on dating apps since the federal government rounds up numbers on tax returns, mostly everyone else does it (likely far more than me), and I have to stick with the number that helps me stand out more in such a superficial and cutthroat market.
The backlash on Reddit I’ve seen from suggestions given to short men to add 1.5-3 inches on dating apps is just laughable. It makes little practical sense to remain completely honest on a number that can completely invalidate everything else you have going for you. They can easily wear lifts that add that amount of height while they save up for a KneeBL (leg lengthening surgery) in Turkey…
Girls way shorter than 6 feet tend to have trouble actually knowing if a man is that height in person and really just set that arbitrary requirement based on a seemingly abundant supply of tall quality men.
On another note, if you have to live with other people and they suddenly check up on you, you can also cover up for some rather shameful, degenerate activities like masturbating or taking drugs by just replacing it with a more innocuous activity such as watching a video or web surfing. Just have to make sure there weren’t any sounds or smells that blew your cover…
Remaining Authentic
Even if I may drop lies rather frequently without even realizing it half the time, I still tend to remain authentic whenever I can. While I still hide degenerate activity from my parents due to not wanting to get lectured, I usually don’t mind telling my friends about it for a quick laugh, even if it’s at my expense.
Might as well just avoid feeling shame and showcase my thick skin and emotional detachment from my faults and quirks whenever I can. I can sleep easy at night knowing that I don’t have to live up to some grandiose caricature of myself whenever I put myself out there.