Little White Lies

[tiggerlover]

What are your feelings about little white lies?

I have caught someone I trusted very, very much in two little white lies in the last few weeks and it is unsettling. I know they are little lies and should be no big deal, but I am thinking if this person will lie about something so small, what else are they lying about.

(For the record, I have known this person at least 20 years and this was a habit that was evident early on in our friendship, but appeared to go away, but now I wonder.....)

 

[SuiteDisney]

Leopards never change their spots.

 

[Mermaid02]

Are these white lies or stupid lies?? A white lie is usually about something that would be hurtful to someone, but is unimportant. For example... "Don't you love my new dress??" you SAY "It looks GREAT on you!" when you're really thinking... "That is the ugliest dress I have ever seen." It doesn't matter that YOU don't like the dress- obviously your friend does.

A stupid lie on the other hand is the kind that someone tells almost as a compulsion.... SeaShelley and I had a friend like that in high school. I'm leery of people that tell those kinds of lies.... stuff that is TOTALLY made up.

 

[snoopy]

Ditto Mermaid's post. I can accept white lies, the stupid, compulsive ones send a red flag that the person is not stable.

 

[JasonLyons]

I love long post

 

[tiggerlover]

BUMP

 

[EROS]

 

[RoqueC]

Lies suck.

 

[lilboo]

I let the little ones go-perception of truth is so subjective.

 

[Beauty]

I agree with Mermaid too.....Little lies to keep from hurting someone are acceptable to me but if someone lies about something like........Oh for example a guy that worked with DH put on his resume that he graduated with a masters degree in Electronics when he hadn't even gone to college....something like that is very very unacceptable.....but then again I don't look at that as a "little" lie either.

 

[Keli]

I appreciate truthfullness in others and I find I do not trust those that I know have lied to me as much as I trust those that I believe have always told me the truth. Stupid lies erode trust.

 

[Poohshoney]

I agree with ***********. If someone lies as the norm, it's rare for them to stop. And I don't think they understand the hurt their lies cause. Trust is a very fragile thing.

 

[Jeff in BigD]

Here's a question though:
Let's say that Person ABC asks Person XYZ to help with something. It's something that XYZ really doesn't want to do & a simple decline would make ABC mad. XYZ says that they can't because of -something vague & generic-, but it's not true. What type of lie would this be considered?

 

[Kermit]

Following on what Mermaid said, you wouldn't ever really "catch" someone telling what I consider to be a white lie. (I guess they could tell you they like your new haircut and then you could catch them talking to other people about how much they don't like it, but that's more a problem with the friend being rude than a liar.)

I'm a non-confrontational person, so I probably wouldn't ever make a big deal out of the lies. However, I would be careful about what I told that person in the future, and I would shy away from maintaining a close friendship if I thought I couldn't trust her.