How long is your nose?

absent and glass that gave me a good laugh. And you see here I am on GN and others are feeling sorry for me because I have a report to produce! LOL.

Grannyknot I am "working" on our year end return as we speak.

I don't lie simply because I think lies are usually found out in the end.

I do tell what I call "kind lies". If a friend gives me a gift and later asks if I liked it, rather than say no (if I didn't!) I would probably say something like its very nice. However, if she didn't ask if I liked it I would just say thank you for the gift. Is that "proper" lying?

As for Father Christmas, I don't think my parents ever told me he didn't exist - I think I sort of worked it out for myself. Never believed in the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy anyway.

There are different categories of lies , of course, some told to protect others, some to protect ourselves, some to bolster our image, some to gain an advantage. I know someone who has lied for so long she really believes now that it is the truth.
I don't think lying is the worst of sins, unless it is done with malicious intent.
The question of whether it is our duty to tell our friends a hurtful truth is a very difficult one. My grandson was sharing a house with some friends, one of whom was cheating on his girlfriend. She begged my grandson to tell her the truth , so he did (he has Aspergers and never lies). She promptly told her boyfriend, forgave him and got him to blame my grandson, who had to leave the house.
As a child, if somebody asked him if he liked their new shoes, he would give his truthful opinion, which did not always go down well. My sister was the same and caused my mother great embarrassment on many occasions.
It is very true that liars need good memories and they often slip up. However, if their lie is not harming others it is probably better just to let it go.

I am very iffy about the convenience lie, that is, a superior version of the dog ate my homework. It doesn't actually hurt anyone else and gets you out of trouble. At the same time, it allows you to shirk your responsibilities, which could be rather more serious than delivering an essay on time, and to reinforce your laziness/sloppiness/lack of organisation – whatever it is that prevented you from doing what you should have done. So perhaps such a lie does cause harm – to the liar himself/herself, rather than to others. This might also be the case with other types of lying.

I do like extreme lies though – ones that are so ridiculous that they're funny, such as this one: "I'm late for school because I squeezed the toothpaste tube too hard and it has taken me all morning to get the paste back in the tube!"

Gillybob I enjoyed your Dave Bond story. However, last night I awoke from a dream in which I was trying to calculate how high a cliff would have to be so that someone who jumped off and whose speed was accelerating at 32 feet/sec2 would have sufficient time to remove shoes and socks (slip-ons, not laces) and put on flippers before reaching the surface of the sea. I kept forgetting the first part of the long multiplication while still doing the second part – no calculator in my subconscious. I still don't know what the answer is but I don't think that there is a cliff that high in the entire world. It took me ages to get back to sleep.

I had a son-in-law who told ridiculous lies about what he had achieved, what exams he had taken, what jobs he had done.....we calculated that to have done it all he would need to be about 40, and he was 21 However, they were not told to harm anybody else and once we realised how low his self esteem was we never challenged his tales.
My poor sister was trying to join in a discussion of pets at school, and said we had a tortoise. A group of girls who always picked on her turned up at our house demanding to see the tortoise. She had to say it had died overnight and our mother had thrown it away.
To understand all is to forgive all.......so they say!

Oh Absent what are you like? No wonder it took you ages to get back to sleep. I wouldn't even know where to start with a complicated calculation such as that! The crazy thing is that I typed out the very condensed version of the full story which would have taken ages. The guys just wouldn't let him squirm out of it and kept pushing him for the rest of the day for more information . For example ; "Hey Dave did you just throw your socks and shoes into the sea on your way down?" Or "Hey Dave that must have made headlines in the local paper I think I might look it up" etc.
Silly man.

Glad you liked it though.

In a desperate attempt to "fit in" I might have done something similar Greatnan

Don't you think there is a huge difference between telling an outright lie and exaggerating the truth?

I had been in my first job for a few months and was the office junior. On one particularly windy day I took the very short walk into town at lunchtime and the flagpole on the town hall had blown down and there was a crowd of people stood around. I went into my usual dreamy mode and lost track of the time. I eventually made it back to work about 15 minutes late and was met by a very angry office manager (she had the biggest boobs in the world but that is irrelevant) she asked me where the hell I had been and said "you better have a good excuse young lady or this will go on your permanent record" (the thought terrified me) thinking about the wind and the flagpole I thought I had better think of something quick and so said " sorry Mrs Lampard but the flagpole fell off the town hall roof right infront of me missing me by inches. I was really frightened and a crowd of people gathered around me telling me I should get checked out at hospital" a colleague overhearing the conversation piped up "she's telling the truth Mrs Lampard as I saw the crowd gathered I just had no idea poor Gillybob was in the centre of it" upon hearing this Mrs Lampard softened and said I should probably go home as I must be shaken up and that she admired my loyalty in coming back to work after such a bad experience. I was so embarrassed and ashamed.

OH, Gillybob, I feel for your young self! Yes, I do certainly agree that somebody giving themselves a more interesting background is perfectly harmless, unless it is intended to deceive. For example, I would be wary about trusting my happiness to a man who was obviously telling huge lies about his past life.

Thank you for your understanding Greatnan I was just 16 at the time and the fear of something going on my permanent record was just too much to bear. I felt deeply ashamed of the lie and yes I did learn that whilst the lie did get me off the hook ( so to speak ) at the time it haunted me for a long time after.

I totally agree with you when you say someone trying to give themselves a more interesting life is relatively harmless, as long as that's all it is and there is nothing more sinister underneath .

I have been pondering about this thread on my long walk today. I think that whilst I can quite understand somebody lying to protect themselves, I find it unacceptable for somebody to declare they never lie and hate dishonesty when I know they are lying. Why not just keep quiet, as liars nearly always slip up and give themselves away. As has been said, liars need a good memory.

Yes, I totally agree with you but I am lucky in that I don't think I know any liars who say they are not. Perhaps they are just very clever and I am too trusting?

I totally agree with you absent

IMHO a white lie here and there is not too bad but like you I hate lies in a big way and if I find that someone has lied to me it does cause a problem because the truth I can work with but never a lie.

I do find it very funny when I read posts on Gransnet full of self-righteousness about telling the truth when I know for certain the poster is lying. I can't think why anyone would bother.

I think a lie to avoid being 'found out' having done something inappropriate is always wrong..honesty is the best policy!

A lie to protect someone from feeling embarrassed can be a kind lie and in this case honesty may not be the best policy.

Some lies are told because people are insecure so 'boast' or 'big up' their lives /experiences..those are sad lies but can be dangerous to the liar if they are found out.

I suppose that it is the impact of the lie on the person being lied to and on the liar too that makes it OK or not

I do tell 'white lies' or lie out of politeness..e.g. Did you enjoy that ? Yes it was lovely...when really it was not to your taste at all!

Movedalot are you really saying you have never ever been less than fully truthful? I am not talking about the whoppers, but the little prevarications. 'How are you feeling? Fine', even though you have a very slight headache, runny nose etc, those minor ailments not worth mentioning. Never in the months after a bereavement pretended to feel better than you do because to burst into tears and weep over everybody who inquires sympathetically every time would drive everyone away, particularly when you do not know them that well?

I find the example you give in your post a puzzle, I would call that a lie. While 'This is the trust which has kept our family so close and our marriage together for 45 years.' , well many others of us would say that we also have families that are close and have absolute trust between members - and 45 years of happy marriage - without ever aspiring to your level of truthfulness.

absent there is a massive difference between telling any kind of lie "In the real world" and telling a silly irrelevant lie on a forum!

Not exactly a lie but how do people feel about a situation where someone tells you something in confidence and then tells you that you mustn't repeat it but you realise that the consequences could have a serious impact on the life of someone in your family? This has happened to me a couple of times, and the one time I told the member of my family as I felt there was a safety issue at stake. I always say that a secret is only a secret when you tell no one and it's often unfair to burden someone with the knowledge you've given them.

I have told lies in the past. I am not proud of this. Nothing dire and no perjury or such, but to get me out of minor trouble.

I do tell white lies where discretion is needed or in an effort not to offend.
I do not reveal secrets though and I would lie to protect someones confidence. As long a the information wasn't related to harm to a third party.

Re Lying.
Suppose a friend tells you something very uncomfortable in confidence and doesn't want it broadcast about other friends. You are asked by another friend how X is, as she is looking worried.
I would then prevaricate or even lie about the reasons for her apparent stress.
It is often possible to sidestep a direct question about something you do not want to reveal or turn the question round. Politicians do it all the time.
I could never be bothered to tell lies about things I had done to boost my image though. Such status has never bothered me.
I am now feeling very guilty and I need a brew.

Yes; I still feel guilty about disclosing information even though there was a very real safety concern. In both cases the weight of the knowledge weighed very heavy on my shoulders [the other one being my husband telling me of his mistress but then swearing me to secrecy; almost drove me to a breakdown]. I can't actually tell a lie because I go red [in fact I go red even when I'm telling the truth but think someone thinks I'm lying ]. Cuppateatimeformetoo, I think...

Cathy, not all lies told on a forum are unimportant - they could affect the way other people interact with you. It makes me uneasy if I think I a having to deal with somebody who used to be a member under another name. It seems dishonest to me. (A couple of members have changed their name for various reasons, but they have told us about it).

Tegan, I don't see what else you could have done if somebody was at risk - some things are even more important than our principles.
As for your louse of a husband - I think I would have put an announcement in the local paper!
I know something about a young person that their mother does not know, but it is not doing any harm and it would only cause trouble if I told their mother. I am not lying, because I have never been asked about it.
I think Micelf's answer sums it up - 'bearing false witness' against somebody is obviously wrong as is lying in order to deceive people about your identity, as it could lead to complications.

Greatnan Why would it effect the way anyone interacted with you, have you gone from being a nice person to a bad person, no, I dont think so, people change their usernames for various reasons and sometimes when people let other people know they have changed their username they report them to HQ, so maybe some people have tried to be honest but it got them no were.