Is It Ever Okay to Lie?
If your dearest friend is able to pull off a decent rendition of Happy Birthday, but will trigger nightmares in a child if they attempt a lullaby, would you tell them? Or would you lie and say they sound fine?
My guess is you’d lie to them. My guess is I would, too.
It’s a gentle white lie that may save them from embarrassment… and us from stating facts that can hurt them – and possibly hurt our friendship as well. But, truth is, our uncomfortable honesty might save them various levels of embarrassment somewhere down the line.
So, is this white lie meant to spare them the embarrassment of the truth, or to save ourselves from the discomfort of revealing it?
When is a lie not a lie?
White lies are everywhere; we employ them regularly. Sometimes to spare someone’s feelings, yes. But also as a means to escape an unwanted invitation, or possibly to protect someone else’s secret. Or maybe, simply, because telling that tiny little lie is less complicated than explaining the whole sordid truth.
It’s likely those gentle white lies are not intended to hurt or deceive.
But they do.
And we accept that because the deception is minimal, often well-intended and, mostly, harmless.
Or is it?
The Bitter Truth
If someone lied to you about something trivial, something they could easily have explained to you in the moment rather than later when/if they get caught in that lie… then what’s to say they won’t lie about bigger issues with more complicated or uncomfortable explanations?
When we find an easy way out, a ‘safe’ zone for ourselves, we often return to it. It’s human nature.
But what if a person lies not only for self-preservation, but also out of loyalty to someone else? What if, in lying out of loyalty or devotion to that person, they betray another, causing a painful irreparable rift?
Jaxton Carter, hero in my romantic suspense thriller, Duplicity, was someone who found himself on the receiving end of an extremely painful – irreparable – rift. The signs were subtle at first. Easy to ignore. And practically invisible to Jax because who would look so deeply for deception when friendship was involved?
Betrayal from a trusted friend was the last thing he considered. Until it hit him between the eyes.
My grandmother, the ‘Sicilian rice ball’ I talked about in an earlier post, had a saying: “Your best friend is your worst enemy.”
That saying could have easily come from Jax.
He went to the window. It was snowing again. Light and lazy now. Flakes the size of his thumb floated down steadily, like an army of tiny paratroopers. Independently harmless, together a blinding force. Same as white lies. Snowballing. Changing the landscape. Altering perception.
Once a liar, always a liar?
Some lessons land harder than others.
What you reveal to someone in your inner circle, and what you conceal, depends on the level of trust established between the two of you. When that trust is solid, you’ll share more. You believe your secrets, your truths, are safe because the someone you confided in would never betray the trust bestowed on them by revealing your secret to others… or by revealing the secrets of others to you.
But when that trust is shattered, it’s not so much the lie itself that leaves the gaping wound, but the reason for it, the betrayal of it and the uncertainty that lingers because of it.
And that uncertainty then begs the question: If someone will lie for you… won’t they lie to you?
