Fun with liars.

Devil Ledbetter · Dec 11, 2015

As I've gotten older and more experienced, I've improved at spotting liars. There are certain things I've noticed people do, or angles that people take, that fairly shriek "I'm lying!" Since I find this amusing (when it's not infuriating) I thought I'd share a few of the tell-tales I've learned over the years, and ask you all to share any you're aware of.

Two sides to every story/you don't know whole story
Someone who is outed for a misdeed offers an "explanation" that sounds like this. "Well, there are two sides to every story. You've only heard one side of the story. If you knew my side, you wouldn't think that. If you knew the whole story, you'd know I'm innocent! Very few people know the real truth. The truth is out there. It will come out! The side you heard is only half the story." Of course the person alluding to this mysterious, untold other side -- which if known would prove her innocence -- never really explains what that truth, or what her side of the story, actually is.

It's all really complicated. You wouldn't understand.
This one is often part of "you don't know the whole story," cover up. The liar's side of the story is so complicated she just doesn't have time to go into it, and if she did, why, it's so complex that your simple brain could barely process it. Besides, she's much too overwhelmed to explain because ....

My dog is deathly ill/I've been in a head-on crash/my mother-in-law is in hospice
A liar who is called to account gives a sob story instead of working to make things right. You request some completely reasonable resolution and they cry tragedy and demand sympathy in hopes that their feigned "delicate emotional state" will trick you into not holding them accountable.

You can trust me, I'm a _________ (insert religion here)
This is the go-to lie of skeezy contractors and door-to-door salespeople. "You can trust me because" is the sound a scam artist makes when he's getting good and ready to rip you off.

I'm so offended that you even think that!
Someone's wrongdoing comes to light and rather than an explanation or apology, they turn the tables and make you the criminal for daring to even suggest such a thing. The more dead to rights you have them, the more highly offended they are that you would think that of them. The closer you are to the truth, the louder and more belligerent their high dudgeon.

Too much detail
This is the opposite angle of "it's all too complex for you to possibly understand why I'm innocent." This is where the person throws in a ton of pointless detail, much of it truth mixed in with the lies. When you point out the parts that are lies, they''ll point to the true parts and insist that it's proof of their veracity.

Let's have fun with liars. How do you know when you're being lied to?

mirandashell · Dec 11, 2015

You know the old joke answer 'When he opens his mouth!'? I used to know someone like that. But not for very long.

Brightdreamer · Dec 11, 2015

Devil Ledbetter said:
You can trust me, I'm a _________ (insert religion here)
This is the go-to lie of skeezy contractors and door-to-door salespeople. "You can trust me because" is the sound a scam artist makes when he's getting good and ready to rip you off.

Years of watching court TV have taught me that any time someone invokes their religion out of the blue, they're a lying, scamming piece of work. I guess it wasn't you who damaged the plaintiff's property or signed that loan agreement, it was Jesus.

Another thing I've learned is to never trust Invisible Ed. This the the guy/gal everyone seems to talk to and make deals with, the voice on the phone or the representative sent to the house or the person at the counter, the friend-of-a-friend-of-a-third-cousin's-in-laws, yet they're always impossible to find when everything falls apart and it ends up in court.

Fruitbat · Dec 11, 2015

I read a body language book once and ever since, I've noticed a tendency for "suspects" to look off to the side or cover their mouths.

Rotes · Dec 11, 2015

Fruitbat said:
I read a body language book once and ever since, I've noticed a tendency for "suspects" to look off to the side or cover their mouths.

I constantly look over to the side and cover my mouth, but never because I'm lying. Some people do that out of pure awkward.

ScottyDM · Dec 13, 2015

Years ago I read an FBI pdf on spotting liars during interrogation, using only word choice. I didn't save it, and have never been able to find it since. But here's a couple of things I remember:

1) When a person is telling what happened last night, they use past tense. When they switch to making up events on the fly, they switch to present tense. It takes quite a lot of brain power to make stuff up on the fly and keep it all straight, and so verb tense gets ignored. Also, while making stuff up it feels like it's happening now, so verb tense gets the now treatment. Not reliable if the person generally f***s up verb tense like the ignorant slob they probably are, but maybe there's a drift from sloppy tense to present tense, or past tense to sloppy tense (or whatever). Also doesn't work if a person has carefully created a story and rehearsed it.

2) When a person is telling something that's amusing, they will smile or laugh at the moment they think of it--typically just before they tell it. When a person is making up events on the fly they will say something amusing, realize they said something amusing, then smile or laugh. Again this is due to the excess brain power needed while lying.

I remember these two points because they fit so well with writing fiction. Especially the order in which emotional response happens compared to a response requiring thought. In times past I've written something like: "That's a funny joke." She laughed. Because that's the order I thought of them. Dwight Swain talks about this order in his book Techniques of the Selling Writer. So an authentic character will feel, then do. And I go back and edit my story.

I was poking around TED-ed and ran into a short video titled "The Language of Lying" by Noah Zandan. He covers different points than the two I remembered from the FBI thing. And he introduces the Googleable term "linguistic text analysis".

So as writers we can make our truthful characters ring true, and our liars set a little red flag in the subconscious of our readers.

Vito · Dec 14, 2015

Foolproof method of spotting a liar: Carefully peek to see if the suspected fibber is crossing fingers behind her/his back. If the fingers are crossed, you're definitely dealing with a big-time liar.

Chase · Dec 14, 2015

Fruitbat said:
I read a body language book once and ever since, I've noticed a tendency for "suspects" to look off to the side or cover their mouths.

Rotes said:
I constantly look over to the side and cover my mouth, but never because I'm lying. Some people do that out of pure awkward.

From speech-reading at a school for the deaf: Right-handed people usually look up and to their left when trying to recall or invent a lie (or down and to their right when telling the truth), but such observations need a baseline of more than one meeting.

If the person is like Rotes and always looks away, this one will as likely look you straight in the eye when lying.

Covering of the mouth usually means falsehoods, bad teeth, or a cold sore. :greenie

Kylabelle · Dec 14, 2015

Vito said:
Foolproof method of spotting a liar: Carefully peek to see if the suspected fibber is crossing fingers behind her/his back. If the fingers are crossed, you're definitely dealing with a big-time liar.

Sophisticated detection method, FTW!

Chase said:
Covering of the mouth usually means falsehoods, bad teeth, or a cold sore.

Or burping.

:greenie

Vito · Dec 14, 2015

Kylabelle said:
Sophisticated detection method, FTW!

And after that, I say "Liar, liar, pants on fire!" That really gets 'em. :rant:

Silenia · Dec 14, 2015

Worth keeping in mind that any methods that rely on body cues of some kind to detect lying can be wildly off when either the person involved genuinely believes what they're saying--regardless of situation/cause/etc. or when said person has non-standard body cues (among other matters, autistic spectrum, severe depression, anxiety disorders, PTSD and a whole bunch of other things can do that). In the latter case, being highly familiar with said person and their body cues does help somewhat, though.

Mainly speaking from personal experience, there. I know a lot of folks have difficulty reading my non-verbal cues if they don't know me well, to the point where for a while I was labelled as having Aspergers, and at some other point as having PTSD, primarily based on my behavioral patterns and non-verbal clues. (Now that I no longer have an anxiety disorder getting in the way, thus no more hyperventilation and panic attacks muddying things up, it's gotten a little better, I suppose. Still, clinical depression/high stimulus sensitivity means my non-verbal signals are still "off" to most people. Just no longer so badly they can't get used to them relatively soon)

Chase · Dec 16, 2015

Liars caught with flaming pants often fess up with outraged counterclaims:

"You followed me, you stalker!"

"You snooped my phone/laptop/diary. I feel violated."

"Gina swore she'd never blab, so you intimidated her!"

Of course, your method of discovery is always far worse than their worst lies.

CheesecakeMe · Dec 16, 2015

I'm not smart enough to read whether or not someone's lying by social cues ala Sherlock style, so I'm stuck observing people over a period of time to see if their actions always meets their words. Liars out themselves eventually, like a prior roommate who promised to go job hunting and proceeded to not, or a classmate who bragged about losing an obscene amount of weight when anyone with functioning eyeballs could tell only the opposite had happened. (Most lies aren't this obvious of course.)
Though I've also encountered people who rewrite history in their minds with more frequency than the rest of us. Are they liars? They genuinely believe in their memories, even if they're false.

Fun with liars.

Devil Ledbetter

Come on you stranger, you legend,

mirandashell

Brightdreamer

Just Another Lazy Perfectionist

Fruitbat

.

Rotes

Crazy Opossum Lady

ScottyDM

Badger, mushroom, snake oh a snake.

Vito

Recalled to life

Chase

It Takes All of Us to End Racism

Kylabelle

unaccounted for

Vito

Recalled to life

Silenia

Chase

It Takes All of Us to End Racism

CheesecakeMe