dishonest | David M Masters

Honesty means telling someone how you think or feel about something knowing that there may be at risk of disagreement from the recipient of your honest statement.

To the degree that you can be honest plays a big part in your ability to be trusted. While honesty can be a one-way street, alternatively “trust” is a two-way street. We are honest with someone, then step back to review how our honesty was received, responded to, or revered it was. Based on the results, we determine if someone can be trusted or not.

If we can be open and honest with others, we are promoting our trustworthiness. Over time we can gain people’s trust by representing ourselves as being honest. Vulnerability and honesty build trust.

Why would you lie?

Fear of hurting someone’s feelings
Fear of retribution or punishment
Fear of not being accepted
Fear of risking your reputation
To protect yourself
To protect someone else
To defend yourself or someone else
To bolster your image or the image of someone else to others or among the community
You want to present yourself as on par with someone else
You are communicating with someone with whom you have little or no respect
You want something from someone, but do not have anything of equal value to trade

And potentially a million other reasons why you might lie, though the reason you are most likely to lie is due to fear or some perceived threat. Fear can be disguised as many things, and hiding behind a shield of fear can prevent you from having all the best things this life has to offer.

You lie because lying is an effective tool that protects you from discomfort or pain.

There is a huge contrast between being honest (which makes you vulnerable) and lying (which protects you).

When you are dishonest, it implies that you cannot trust the person you are misrepresenting yourself to.

You are afraid they will misunderstand or hurt you. Alternatively, you may fear they will not like what you have to say or might get their feelings hurt by your being honest.

When you lie, there is the hopeful expectation that your deception will not come to light. But for most of us, lying comes with some form of guilt. A part of us desires to be open and honest in all things, so when we lie, we feel bad or at least, regret not feeling safe enough to tell the truth.

Often if you have negative habits or addictions, you are likely to lie to present others from seeing your weaker side.

It is exceedingly difficult to feel safe with someone who you cannot trust.

What about the lies you tell yourself?

What does your lying to yourself say about your relationship with yourself?
Do you trust yourself with your most intimate details?
How about when you think, say, or at out in some way that is not congruent with who you really are?
Do you lie to yourself to cover up or justify your indiscretions?
If you want to feel competent or confident, are you apt to lie to yourself to make yourself feel better?
Is it possible to be truly open and honest?

If you have lied about a thing in the past and felt uncomfortable for doing so, you will experience a great sense of relief from being able to tell the truth, to essentially “come clean.”

In all areas of life, it is likely that you will run into an individual who is less than honest. There are so many ways for people to deceive, cheat, lie and steal, and if you’re not diligently paying attention, you might be swindled or betrayed by someone you’d considered as trustworthy.

This is not permission to go over the edge and be paranoid or adopting the extreme thought pattern that, “everyone’s out to get me,” only to be aware enough of your surroundings to be looking for clues that someone might be trying to put one over on you.

For a proficient or pathological liar, their ability to confidently state an all-out lie is unparalleled, so these tells may not be effective in getting to the truth from a cleverly deceptive liar. But other, “normal,” people will express some behaviors because they are not comfortable when lying.

Uncovering Deceit Expose the Liars

Being aware means getting to know someone well enough to establish their baseline behavior in a normal non-threatening conversation. If you don’t know how a person acts like when their engaged in conversation about something they interested in, when they would have no interest in being deceitful, you do not have enough information to notice a change in their behavior, which is your first clue that something might be awry.

Body language will likely change when someone is being deceptive. If in a normal conversation, he or she looks you in the eye and his or her body faces you straight on, and in the present conversation, they are not making eye contact, or their body is now at a 45 degree angle, that could be an indication that something’s up.

Someone’s facial expression, or eye movement which is different from their normal pattern of communication could also indicate someone is being less than honest and open, or intentionally hiding something.

Yes means yes, and no means no. If you’ve asked a simple yes or no question and the person you’ve asked answers with a long drawn out story, and can’t seem to settle on a yes or no conclusion, this is a clear indication of deceit or coverup. If you want the truth, you might want to ask this person, “Is that a yes, or a no?”

If you notice some inconsistencies in someone’s delivery, it could be connected to some other life experience which would trigger a signal which could be interpreted as a sign of someone’s deceit. If you really want to get down to what’s going on (and risk getting too personal) you might want to ask more questions and drill down to make a better determination whether this person is lying to you, or if he or she connected your question to a life experience in their past, which caused him or her to react differently.

When you’ve completed your conversation, gathered whatever information they’ve had to tell you, and you’ve confirmed that he or she has nothing more to say, then watch their reaction when you ask them if everything they’ve told you is true.
This is another simple yes or no answer. An honest person may admit to some inconsistency or add information that was purposefully left out at this point, which after allowing them to speak their piece would indicate the need to ask again if that was everything, and if they are telling the truth, leaving you waiting again for a simple yes or no answer.

A deceptive person will dance all around “Yes,” or, “No,” citing all kinds of irrelevant information and/or confusing details, and once you’ve received your simple yes or no answer, you might be brazen enough to follow up with the infamous, “Why should I believe you?”

Again, if their reply is over the top, emotionally charged, or they offer up a liturgy of character references, appalled that you might challenge them in such a manner, it could be an indication that they are being deceptive or withholding important information or details.

While brief and incomplete, hopefully these key signals indicating that someone’s not being honest and open with you will help you in determining if you’re dealing with a deceptive person, or an otherwise honest person who is not being completely forthcoming.

Good luck.

Don’t get paranoid, but be aware.