Lies. Most people have told at least one. Some people tell an awful lot of them. My great-grandmother used the parental scare-tactic, a white lie, and told me that the white dots /spots on my fingernails were lies. I remember staring at them, and tried to figure out what I’d lied about? Other lies are more harmful and lead to distress, like when my biological father kidnapped me from daycare and hid me from my mother for 6 months. He told the sitter that he wanted to get me some new shoes. She hesitated handing me over, without consulting my Mom first, but he convinced her, saying he wanted me to pick them out. (I was less than a year old.) Did he recognize the flaming clothes-horse I was yet to become?

A lover’s lies are always painful. Christine McVie cooed about it, in the Fleetwood Mac song, Tell me Lies. When asked about it she said, “The idea of the lyric is: If I had the chance, I’d do it differently next time. But since I can’t, just carry on lying to me and I’ll believe, even though I know you’re lying.” The song always reminds me of a human boil I used to bop. He lied about everything, and for quite awhile I had no idea he was doing it. It was like I went through Burger King drive-thru and ordered a triple-deck burger with extra painful pickles, then they handed it to me in a barf bag.

I remember how shocked and infuriated I was when I found out his worst lie…by his new lover… on my birthday. His new lover (unbeknownst to me) wanted to thank me for all the help I’d given him over the camping weekend that we’d driven 8 hours together in a car to get to. We had laughed together in the shared car of another friend. I ended up helping him with this and that all weekend long. I’d been to the destination before, so I helped him find a place to set and put up his tent, told him where it was ok to pee, and said to ask me if he had any questions. We spent 5 days hanging out and were becoming friends. My ex had told him I was cool going on the trip with him. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I never would have done that trip had I known. It was hard to blame the kid, cause he was dumb as a box of rocks, and if you really thought I was cool with it, why didn’t you mention it in the beginning? This is an example of lying by omission. Yet another ghastly trait that humans possess. At that point in my life I hadn’t caught someone in a lie for quite some time. I remember feeling dumbfounded and confused that someone I loved would lie about me for their benefit. At that moment, I truly was a babe in the woods.

I’ve been lied to, I’ve been lied about. It bothers me and makes me question humans and their humanity. It has also harmed me and kept me from seeing people I love. Hell, I’ve lied too, I learned from it. I learned NOT to do it.

What are the benefits of lying?

Its pretty obvious that people lie to make themselves look better, manipulate outcomes, make money etc., etc… I’m sure they have myriad of reasons and every excuse that would churn my stomach into vomit.

Unfortunately, these lies not only harm the ones who indulge in them. In They also harm others affected by them.. Liars are supreme narcissists. They are blind to consequences and the emotions of others. Imagine, if someone you loved told a bald face lie about you and you had been exiled from your family as a result? I’ve gone over and over in my head trying to figure out how I would respond. Would it make me feel better to cast a spell and poke needles in a doll effigy of the aforementioned liar? Probably… Or maybe I could take a photo ad out in a newspaper, waving hello on a beloved national holiday? I think that’s a great idea too, but that would be public shaming and that’s never been my thing. I’m all in for wearing a fashionable scarlet letter, but constraining someone in stocks is more of a private matter. I’ll reserve that one for the kinksters. Of course, I would never do any of those things. But if it did happen to me, I wonder what approach I would take in coming to terms with such shocking behavior?

Maybe I would reflect on why that person would want to lie about me? Did they have something to gain? Did they ever like me? Maybe they were always a terrible person and I overlooked it? Had my love for them manifested into a blind eye for their previous misdeeds? Have I thought about the possibility of this nightmare scenario too much?

You know what? I don’t have an answer. I think I might reconsider my relationship with that person. Maybe I would write about it to try and make sense out of it? I might count myself lucky to not have them in my life anymore. I’m sure I would still miss the rest of my family and wonder how things turned out that way.

When one lies, they lose credibility. Not only for themselves, but the integrity of all humans on the planet. Fuck you if you propagate a false narrative. (That one is specifically for Trump & his fickle friends) Truth is best. Truth is important. Stop lying. The truth gives us a reason to trust and rely on each other. It builds and strengthens our bonds of community. My mother use to say you could do anything but lie to her. She wouldn’t stand for that, and I won’t either.