If you always tell the truth you'll never have to remember a lie- that's very sage advice
and a good tip for living your life without fear of being caught in embarrassing social
situations.
Yet everyone lies, even if it's just small white lies in polite conversation.
Could you go a full week without telling even a single polite lie though?
Today we're finding out as we once more turn to your favorite guinea pig in this special
Challenge episode: don't lie for a week!
Day 1: What a strange challenge.
I have to admit, this is another one of those that seems really easy right off the bat,
but with some more thought, the sinister truth is revealed.
I don't make a habit of lying, in fact I pride myself in being honest, even when it is at
a detriment to myself.
I even go so far as to make sure that I don't make any promises I doubt I can keep- which
is something we routinely do as people.
You don't have to be an underhanded liar to make promises you're only halfway sure you
can keep, and often we do this to make other people feel good, but I've made it a point
to ensure that what I say is what I do, no matter what.
That means that sometimes I can't make certain promises, and it's been awkward and difficult
in social situations at times.
And that's when the truly sinister nature of this challenge hit me: I can't lie at all
for a week, even in the meaningless conversation with people that fills our lives.
See the reality is that we all lie all the time.
When you go to the store and the cashier or clerk asks you, “Having a good day?”,
how many of you have told the truth?
How many times have you had a really horrible day and just said the truth to a complete
stranger?
Of course you don't do that, because you want to grease the wheels of polite social interaction,
so everyone joins in the big fake theater production that we call daily interaction
and we tell giant lies to each other.
Oh my day was wonderful thank you for asking.
The clerk doesn't really care what your day is like, and you are definitely not going
to tell her that your day was absolute crap.
Because then you'd be a weirdo- and yet somehow it's less weird to be a huge liar and pretend
your day is fine.
Yet if you were to lie to this person about something else, like the fact that you swapped
price tags on an item, she'd be furious.
It's strange when you think about it, the way that you can be a total weirdo for not
lying sometimes, and yet still be a bastard if you do lie other times.
So I guess I've realized that this challenge is going to be harder than I thought.
In a way though, I'm kind of excited about it.
I get to drop my mask for a full week and just tell the honest truth.
I get to be completely blunt- well more blunt than I typically am- and that's kind of liberating.
So at the same time that this challenge worries me, I'm kind of eager to get it started.
See you guys mid-week in two days.
Day 3: I feel like I say this a lot, but this challenge is harder than I expected, and as
I predicted the real challenge comes from the polite little white lies we constantly
tell each other.
I read some articles on lying out of curiosity and it turns out that sixty percent of people
tell at least one lie in a ten minute conversation.
Men and women both tell the same amount of lies, but the difference is in how they lie.
Women are more likely to lie in order to make someone feel better, while men lie to make
themselves look better.
This makes sense, I've watched my girlfriend interacting with her friends before and definitely
caught her telling some minor whoppers for the sake of making a friend that feels bad
feel better.
“No, I don't think your boyfriend is cheating on you, but I do think you guys should talk.”
I've heard her say this one before to a friend whom we both highly suspected had a boyfriend
that was definitely cheating on her.
But of course you can't just say to someone with a breaking heart, “Yeah your boyfriend
is a scum-bucket.”
You have to be gentle, prod them towards the truth with a tiny little lie.
Give a tiny bit of hope that will move the person in the right direction, towards discovering
the truth on their own.
Of course I have done the same thing.
I clearly remember once in conversation with another couple we had just met where I rounded
up on the number of days one of my art shows featuring my photo prints lasted.
It wasn't a huge rounding error, I simply went from about 13 days to quote- about half
a month- end quote, for the sake of simplicity.
But it was in fact a lie, and it did make me look better in the eyes of the people I
told it to.
It's probably difficult to ascertain the veracity of a study on lying when people can... well
lie about the results, but this one seems to be right on the money.
Anyways, so the little white lies that I'm not telling have been getting me in trouble,
or at least into awkward social situations.
I went to the store and decided that would be the perfect place for my first stab at
this challenge, since the cashiers at my local grocery store constantly ask how my day is,
and if I found everything ok.
Truth be told, my day was going pretty ok, but when I got to the register the little
kid belonging to the woman behind me kept acting up and running into me as he threw
his little temper tantrum.
So when the cashier asked me if everything was ok, I told her that I wished they would
throw bratty kids out of the store if parents refused to discipline them.
Bam, just like that everyone sort of froze.
Then the woman behind me said, “Excuse me?”
And that's when all hell broke loose.
I slowly turned to face her and knowing I couldn't lie, I said, “I think you are a
terrible a parent because you can't discipline your child as he repeatedly runs into random
strangers as he's throwing a temper tantrum in public.”
I had my girlfriend with me because we were doing our weekly shopping, and at this point
her jaw slowly dropped open and she got this really blank look on her face, then a flash
of recognition struck her as she realized that I couldn't tell a lie.
The woman's mouth fell open too as if she was going to say something but she sort of
stood there sucking in air angrily like a fish out of water.
It gave me enough time to swipe my debit card and pay for my groceries, then calmly walk
away.
My girlfriend still hadn't said anything, and when we got in the car she just simply
put her hand over mine and said, “Please don't get us killed this week.”
Next stop was Trader Joe's to pick up a few things we prefer to buy there over a normal
grocery store.
For those of you who don't know, T.J.s is a bit fancier grocery store whose quality
seems on average a little better than a normal store.
But it's also pricier, and I have a love/hate relationship with it.
Some things are well worth the price, but other things are just marked up nonsense meant
to cater to the all-organic crowd who pays extra money for buzzwords on the packaging
that nutritionally and scientifically, mean nothing.
So this time our shopping went without incident, and we got to the cashier who asked, “Did
you find everything ok?”- and that's when things went south again.
As soon as he started asking his question I think my girlfriend had a flash of recognition
and remembered my opinions on Trader Joe's prices, because she tried to cut him off.
Too late though, he asked his question, and I was obliged to answer truthfully.
“Actually no, I found that you guys are marking up prices on a lot of items for no
other reason than that they are labeled “organic”, and yet not only is organic food no different
nutritionally than non-organic food, in a lot of cases it is both more polluting for
the environment and more dangerous to human health than non-organic food because of the
use of organic pesticides.
Your trendiness is gouging people financially, hurting them physically, and making the world
a worse place.”
I'd like our viewers to imagine going to a Veteran's Day parade and then jumping over
the railing and running out into the parade butt naked while screaming, “I love Al-Qaeda!”
That is in effect what saying anything negative about organic food in trendy Los Angeles is
like.
Now imagine that it's not a Veteran's Day parade that you're crashing as you scream
that you love Al-Qaeda, but that it's the Pentagon itself.
That's what it's like to trash talk organic inside a Trader Joes or a Whole Foods in Los
Angeles.
It's social suicide, if not actual suicide as hordes of angry hipsters tar and feather
you for fact-checking their organic gods.
Someone might as well have died inside that store after my answer given how quiet the
checkout lanes got.
My girlfriend just face palmed herself and I could tell that she was already thinking
how she could never return to this particular Trader Joe's again.
I guess it's a good thing there's one every three miles in this town.
You know, this challenge worried me at first, but I'm finding it strangely liberating.
Almost liking it.
Day 7: I think nobody is more happy this challenge is over than my girlfriend, who is probably
right now carefully reconsidering what friends she can and can't hang out with anymore, and
which stores she is allowed to show her face at anymore.
After our shopping fiascos, the week went on much as normal, and then the weekend got
here.
This weekend we had another social function to go to, which is pretty much a must-do for
every person who works in any capacity within the entertainment industry here in LA, basically
they are just get-togethers for actors, producers, writers, and directors who all try to find
someone with more power and influence- or money- than them and then they suck up to
them all night long trying to get them interested in their project.
It's a huge waste of time and I 100% hate these things, but they are sadly a bit of
a necessity for working professionals so they can occasionally do some real networking.
I typically haunt the open bar while the girlfriend networks for the both of us, because I am
not a people person.
This event was different, because I had a secret superpower up my sleeve to handle the
evening with: I couldn't lie.
Not even a tiny polite lie to make awkward conversations a tiny bit better.
I had to 100% tell the truth, and I was really, really looking forward to it.
Probably as much as the girlfriend was dreading it.
She warned me at least five times to “be nice”, and I told her I was going to be
so nice that I would be 100% honest with everyone.
That did little to calm her down.
At first the evening went ok, then inevitably we both got cornered by someone we've met
before who constantly tries to talk about his projects, which always sound terrible
and I have absolutely zero interest in.
He's always been a nice enough guy, and I've always found a polite way to excuse myself
from the conversation.
This time, I couldn't do that.
So this time I simply said, “I'm sorry none of this interests me at all and I don't see
us ever collaborating on anything, so instead I'm going to go get a drink.”
Then I walked away.
I don't know how he reacted because I wasn't looking, but I did catch him glaring at me
later in the night.
See, told you- people get mad at you if you tell the truth pretty much as often as if
you lied to them and they found out.
Needless to say, I will likely not be making a re-appearance at any of these networking
events anytime soon, and you know what- I am totally ok with that.
Truth be told, I was afraid of this challenge at first, but by the end of this week I feel
kind of liberated.
I've no doubt burned a bunch of social bridges, and I can probably never step foot in at least
four different grocery stores now, but any bridges I burned where with scumbags anyways,
so I'm feeling pretty ok about this last week.
The girlfriend on the other hand is a bundle of nerves right about now because she's always
been our social diplomat, smoothing the rough waters I accidentally create, and this week
she's been the League of Nations trying to prevent World War I.
She deserves a medal for all the social clean-up work she's going to have to do over the next
few weeks.
I really felt like I owed her one, so just before the clock ran out on the week-long
challenge I reminded her I couldn't lie for another five minutes, then looked at her as
she lay in bed reading with no makeup on and her hair a mess and told her she was the most
beautiful woman I'd ever met.
She got a big smile on her face, and I think everything's going to be okay after all.