Lying and lying

[Ylva]

No, I wouldn't take offense if there was a chance it could possibly be true.
I wrote that to you with honesty, not to offend you. You must doubt that because your whole argument stems from claiming to wanting to hear only the bare & honest truth. Well, that was the bare & unvarnished truth from my vantage point. Perhaps I should have been "diplomatic" & omitted sharing it.
On the other hand, if someone told me that as a way to put me down, dismiss or offend me; then I would consider it a rude, offensive & even unfair remark. This was not the basis for what I wrote. Perhaps it was inappropriate & I apologize if it seemed so to you.

I wanted to follow up to say that my original comment was actually intended as humor. HUMOR. You know, funny, haha.

That was my mistake because there is evidently a stark difference between how some of you view & receive information, & how I may view or receive information.

I then responded reactively, with an explanation of sorts, because I was surprised (& annoyed) to see offense taken, & to receive criticism over something so benign that was intended lightly.

Your generally condescending tone makes the rest of what you say come off as hostile. (From "[Name], you wrote: …" right under the quote box, to "Who are you to criticise liars for making things easier for themselves?")

Sure there are dishonest individuals, but their dishonesty is usually revealed eventually & either scorned if not punished. Honesty goes along with another 'must have' value - not stealing, i.e.; respecting another person's property. People who lie or steal in society are not respected, admired or ultimately rewarded. My parents passed down something they were taught by their parents, "There is nothing worse than a liar or a thief."

Rapists and murderers are worse. Abusers are worse. You are wrong about dishonest individuals – they tend to get away with it. People tend to make excuses for them, to include fairy stories like "oh, they'll get punishes by karma" or whatever.

 

[Suzanne]

I won't lie, I do lie on occasion. It's usually to protect myself or someone else. The lies I tell most often are usually little detail changes when talking about my past, like changing the gender of past partners to avoid coming out to coworkers when I know their reactions to such information could be unfavorable.

Where my honesty had been a great weakness is in sales. I used to sell cell pones. I inc got in trouble for doing what I felt was my job. A couple of guys were looking at phones and pointed out one of the models. "I hear that this phone is a piece of $#@% and breaks easily. Is that true." He asked. "Yes, I do see quite a few of them come in for repairs. The screen is very fragile." I then went on to show him more durable models.

Two days later my supervisor pulled me aside to talk to me. "I hear you told one of our customers that this phone was a piece of $#&%" I explained that I hadn't, that I had simply agreed that it is fragile as I had heard this from other customers and seen quite a few come in for repairs. She told me I should have said something more along the lines of, "This phone has a highly sensitive touch screen so you really want to baby it. Can I interest you in a carrying case?" She asked me how I would feel, as a customer, if a sales person told me that a product had a defect. I told her it would make me feel more confident in that sales person's opinion because they are obviously not afraid to sugarcoat the truth. She never explained how this would make her feel.

Amazing and I would be just like you and actually, you are right! I could never work in sales because I could not lie to get a sale. I thought of online jobs and looked at surveys and was disgusted that you have to tell lies in order to get work. How can you say that something is great, if you have not tested it? So that went out of the window.

And, if you dealt with us, I would think: if only other sale's people were like her! And my husband would be most impressed, because he is sick and tired of being told one thing and then the opposite happens.

Also, you give a good demonstration on where the trait that asies can't lie, lays!

 

[Suzanne]

something so benign that was intended lightly.

This is exactly how my husband reacts! He cannot get his head around that I would find it offensive and thus, arguments ensure, because we both cannot see how the other one could think that way!

 

[Suzanne]

Your generally condescending tone makes the rest of what you say come off as hostile. (From "[Name], you wrote: …" right under the quote box, to "Who are you to criticise liars for making things easier for themselves?")



Rapists and murderers are worse. Abusers are worse. You are wrong about dishonest individuals – they tend to get away with it. People tend to make excuses for them, to include fairy stories like "oh, they'll get punishes by karma" or whatever.

As soon as I read: the worst are liars and thieves, I immediately knew that we would say: murders, rapists etc are worse or at least the same. Because this is exactly what happens between my husband and me. He may say similar and I will come out with: how can you say that rapist and murders are not worse and he would say: I didn't say that and I would say but you just did and whoa! I see now, that this is a chronically difficult area between aspies and nts.

 

[Tia Maria]

Your generally condescending tone makes the rest of what you say come off as hostile. (From "[Name], you wrote: …" right under the quote box, to "Who are you to criticise liars for making things easier for themselves?")



Rapists and murderers are worse. Abusers are worse. You are wrong about dishonest individuals – they tend to get away with it. People tend to make excuses for them, to include fairy stories like "oh, they'll get punishes by karma" or whatever.

We'll just have to agree to disagree. Good luck to you.

 

[Tia Maria]

As soon as I read: the worst are liars and thieves, I immediately knew that we would say: murders, rapists etc are worse or at least the same. Because this is exactly what happens between my husband and me. He may say similar and I will come out with: how can you say that rapist and murders are not worse and he would say: I didn't say that and I would say but you just did and whoa! I see now, that this is a chronically difficult area between aspies and nts.

Before one is a murderer or rapist they are a liar & thief of sorts. And of course murderers & rapists are evil people. That kind of goes without saying.

Agree to disagree & call it a day. Be well.

 

[AsheSkyler]

Amazing and I would be just like you and actually, you are right! I could never work in sales because I could not lie to get a sale.

Yeah, part of the reason H&R Block cut my hours until I quit. I wouldn't sell their crappy insurance because what the "insurance" was about was what they were legally and ethically required to do in the first place.

Before one is a murderer or rapist they are a liar & thief of sorts. And of course murderers & rapists are evil people. That kind of goes without saying.

When you overthink it, every bad person is a thief. Obvious thieves steal money and goods. Cheaters are those who steal the mate of another. Murderers steal lives. Rapists steal a bunch of stuff, like confidence, rights, and sometimes innocence. Liars steal the truth away from people who'd otherwise have it. Nearly all of them steal the happiness of another. Although I learned the hard way you don't suggest to a preacher to just shorten the Ten Commandments down to "don't steal", sometimes normal people like to be more specific than me.

 

[Cerulean]

One day just for fun (because we have an odd sense of "fun") my boyfriend and I took turns telling truths and lies to see what our tells are. Turns out my lies look more like truths than my truths do, probably because I've spent 30 years mimicking others and am less comfortable being myself than I am being the Cerulean I show others.

 

[Aspergirl4hire]

I think for me it's not lie or don't lie, it's more of a both/and thing. I have a stronger social pull than most of the aspies I see here, so I dance this line a lot: lying appears to be necessary to get along socially (and even more so to succeed). So there are times when I will try the diplomatic lie. The problem arises when someone wants to know something but what they really want is for me to validate their opinion, which they may or may not have disclosed. Go along with the hidden agenda which isn't always completely hidden and lie plausibly. Ie, they don't expect to be fooled, they expect compliance with the party line.

That hits my AS but it also hits my reality-testing bug: the injustice of false dealing (AS), the impulse reaction from marrow and the heart and the speed and energy of my response (ADHD)---that is what turns people off, and the only thing that turns it off is when I don't know what I'm feeling. When I don't know what I'm feeling, the dissembling is easier, because I'm not the one doing it. It's the other person, wanting to believe that I'm going along, who deceives themselves. There was an interesting video on YouTube or TED or somewhere on liespotting that went into some related topics. I bought the book. The larger problem becomes, do we all now have to become better at lying if we're better at liespotting? What if you can't read facial microexpressions (that split-second 'tell' when your face shows what you think)? What if your face doesn't show those because you don't yet know what you feel? That's how I think aspies can be deceiving--not because we choose to, but because we don't reveal emotions we don't know we're feeling until the emotional awareness catches up with us.

 

[Aspergirl4hire]

I wanted to follow up to say that my original comment was actually intended as humor. HUMOR. You know, funny, haha.

That was my mistake because there is evidently a stark difference between how some of you view & receive information, & how I may view or receive information.

Well, yes. That is one of the "features" of a neurodiverse environment. The exchange on this thread is very useful to me because it's a model of how things can go sideways despite good intentions, although I grieve that there was pain. At least, I'm feeling pain when I read some of the posts.

I then responded reactively, with an explanation of sorts, because I was surprised (& annoyed) to see offense taken, & to receive criticism over something so benign that was intended lightly.

That's one of the things I personally find so hard about good intentions, especially my own. I don't notice that my action is what's visible, not my intent, and my action gets seen through the lens of someone who does not hold lightly something I held lightly. For me, this is why I loathe going to parties. There's something about the social stickiness I just don't get, and it isn't a factor in the social things I do enjoy, such as business conferences.

I find it offensive that something so minuscule in importance, that I shared in humor, would be used as an example of how NTs (or those from the West) are dishonest, &/or don't engage in open, honest, healthy communication or relationships etc... That is just one of many false beliefs, biases or misconceptions that a few here seem to harbor.

I feel your pain here. And I think this is why I believe the "lens" I, or anyone, use to look at behavior is more important than the behavior or the intent to the recipient of the message: the lens gives meaning to the message and completes the communication. The differences between how the allistic and autistic minds process communication mean we can't take things for granted, we have to validate the meaning we apply to what we hear and see. Don't know if that helps.

And honesty is considered a 'must have' personal value & character trait in most personal relationships & Western society in general.

Well, yes, except in classical Sparta, Renaissance diplomacy, and any modern political situation that has to contend with public perception. But you do make your point: on the individual level, we have to be able to trust each other. It would be interesting to explore just what trust is and how it develops, given that the aspie experience as a minority mind is very different.

EDIT: pickup to a related thread on trust not listed in Similar Threads

 

[Walid123]

Hi all, guess I'm kinda new to all (especially finally putting a name to something that has had a profound effect on my life but not knowing what it was, being an Aspie) this and feel a tad awkward to ‘chip-in’, so please forgive me on at least two accounts, one the thread would of probably drifted on from where I chose to enter, and secondly sometimes I lose my track or drift/wonder and waffle a bit… hahaha…


I would class myself as falling into what ‘OliveOilMom’ (Hi, some nice comments as too are many the others) calls a ‘black and white’ aspie, up to the point… something about not seeing grey areas of communication, ‘is the rule valid/ logical or Just’ to fall into one of these? (soz if I got anything wrong ‘OliveOilMom’, I hate this method of communication, depends too much on ‘moods’ when interpreting what ‘was’ and what ‘wasn’t’ said or ‘meant’, I’m more a face to face person, Ha... and even then it's not easy)

I ‘feel’ everyone sees grey areas and I personally feel choice/ hypocrisy- who’s truth/context/intent behind the truth presented and a few other things that come into play in all our lives. Choice of black/white or grey in all this I (personally) feel drop into about 2 areas; choice (do I don't I) and lack of-choice ( led by the nose questions, medai etc.)

I more or less live by ‘a spades a spade’, lies wind me up especially from bureaucrats and politicians, social workers (not always their fault, hypocritical system their world has devolved into, an example of a forced truth) or friends/family, the older I get the more meaning there is to ‘your word is your bond’ (it maybe that I am too much of a literalist in many things, but hey it’s my life & I'm the one I have to live with) one of the great things I found is it's a choice I don't have to accept even with those around me ( you become the company you keep.... funny this part of me seem to be adictive!!!)

I feel more than ever we are living in a society that is becoming ‘upside-down’ on its concept of values and ‘hypocritical’ enforcing/acting on them, where the Media (who are politically scripted/dictated too) increasingly ‘uses’ seeing is believing’ into the context that suits what’s ‘required’ ( the narrator leads you to the required conclussion) and has drifted form ‘what we should know’… increasingly I feel we are living in an age where lies and lies are becoming the new truth and vice-versa (but that might be digressing again??) Believing in ‘what you are seeing’ can and is often greatly influenced by (especially in the Media) agenda of the narrator, who leed you to see what they want you to see and in the context of what they want you to see it, rather than seeing the truth ‘full picture’, so this ‘saying’ should always be questioned)

I wouldn’t call myself as a ‘diplomat’ though others I know would say differently?? Ask me a black and white question, get a black and white answer… ask me a grey question and get a political black and white answer, I may try to put a cherry on it, but… B & W it will be...

I have found a number of ways for myself to void having to lie… throughfor years of being bullied (pre-school upto present day), mainly physiologically and often because I am who I am and wasn’t willing to be, refusal to compromise on my values and my ‘seeing things differently to those who targeted me (first do no harm, second love for others what you love for yourself, on to thyn own self be true coz otherwise you stich yourself up… big), I don’t see that as wrong with the way I see B&W in the contex I perceive things (not taking what been said by others personaly) or sticking near religiously to rules that follow my own values, not the rules that become imoral or twisted by a mixed up society, I don’t see this as not dealing with grey areas or having to stick to the rules, ‘being true to yourself’ has more benefits that the consequences, as far as I feel/see.


Have I lied… well that’s a matter of ‘perception/context and intent ( is the ‘whole truth nothing but the truth’, when the ‘intent’ behind the question is to take it out of ‘context’ of the action/event or parts thereof?? Is ‘seeing is believing’ or is it down to ‘what’s being narrated’ to you??)

Lastly I pray I haven't caused any offence, because none was intended... I like being a B&W (as I see it) nearly as much as I like you being you