Hanging around with a group of friends, I tend to start looking at the group dynamics and like to chart out the various interrelationships at play. Watching it is fascinating as you see a group gets subdivided into smaller subsets as people tend to gravitate towards others who they are comfortable with. How a group handles the divide is the issue – as in I often see in an effort not to hurt feelings, lies are told , which in the short run manage to avoid issues but eventually lead to permanent feelings of discord.
I think that is what is the core of the problem – Lies – small or big ,it just makes it very difficult to connect with someone who lies.
There are two primary reasons why people lie. First is fear /shame. People believe that they will not be accepted if they are honest about who they really are. Hence they lie. Second is because people are selfish. These type of people lie even when it would be so much easier to just tell the truth.
I was recently lied to and felt so unimportant, I felt as if my friend who lied didn’t care about me or trust me enough to tell me the truth. This in turn made me question myself and I felt that I must have done something to make her want to lie. Now from my end I feel as I cannot trust her anymore. I want to forgive and move on but this constant question hangs over me – if she lied for this silly thing, what else could she have lied about?
So in case you ever do this to someone please remember there is a way out in three easy steps:
Confess: Tell the truth and let it all out – Don’t half bake it, don’t say “but remember when you also said this or that”, or try to give a reasoning behind the lie – just be honest – say what you did. The only thing you are actually dreading is feeling ashamed with yourself. Accept it and move on, friends are usually more forgiving that you think.
Accept the consequences: Yep it’s going to be difficult and awkward but hey you put yourself in this position. If the person who you lied to is not willing to accept your apology perhaps it’s time to move on. Friends, real friends might balk initially but will eventually come around.
Stop lying: This would be a no brainer, perhaps not everyone you know will like you but aren’t relationships made from the deep connections we make by telling the truth?