Liar, Liar. Pants on Fire.

What makes us different? Individuals? What makes us better than the person standing next to us? Is it how we talk? How we dress? Is it the number of zeros in our bank account? How about the stories we tell, I mean, our life experiences, that’s surly what makes us better than the next person. Or is it our crazyness that defines diversity. Could I ever say I know I’m better then you because of who I know? Or, who I don’t know…. Who I want you to think I know.

There are people who create alternate universes, people with multiple personality disorders; people who are deranged and possibly dangerous. We call those people crazy. They, to us, are not normal.

However, do we not all day dream? We create ideas in our minds that, at times, are contrary to the concept of ‘the real world’. This idea of a daydream, the visionary fantasy that is experienced while awake, is it not an alternate universe? And what happens if it is taken as a reality? What if we told stories of our daydreams as if they had really happened? There are people out there who do just that. We call those people liars. They, to us, are normal.

I mean, we all lie a little don’t we? We extend the truth to make it more appeasing to our audience. Add a witty remark to our story and then claim to have said it, when really it never crossed our mind when the incident was actually occurring. Sometimes, our listeners accept these false statements, and move on, never thinking back to what it was you said.

I’m no doctor. I do not understand the way our minds work.

I have realized, from experience however, that sometimes, I recall statements that were marked irrelevant by my mind when they were first spoken, but then at a later event sparked permanently into my memory.

For example, a person says “I killed an alligator over the weekend.” I’d think, “wow, cool,” and then move on to the next cool story, usually dismissing the alligator story. And exactly one week later this same person says, “I was in Alaska two weekends ago.” This is when we pull out our common knowledge and logically conclude that two weekends ago was the SAME weekend. I set aside in my brain that these two facts are completely conflicting; there is no freaking way that there was a free roaming alligator in Alaska…

But when do we accuse someone of a deception. Where do we draw the line between a petty lie told, because the truth would hurt, and a complete intentionally told tale?( And when I say complete, I mean detailed to the dotted I’s and crossed T’s.) Would that not be the same as drawing a fine line between a crazy person and a liar?

When can we point our stubby, ignorant fingers and say, “what you are saying is a lie. You are a liar” when it is in our human nature to, at times, avoid the truth.

How about, when the lie is so far-fetched or when it’s so poorly planned out. So pathetic that it makes us cringe as we listen to it. Sometimes impossible to listen too, so we pick out every little aspect our minds deem ‘false’. What do we do in this case? Do we call the person out? What do we say? How do we deal with something when it HURTS to believe, but kills all the same to call the truth?

What defines an unhealthy liar?

How about the notion that they are lying without any motive that is aware to others? Or when lying becomes a lifestyle one must live by NOT because they dug themselves so deep, but because they have become entirely compulsive?

It is still to be determined if pathological liars have complete control over their lies and whether or not it is always consciously done.

“Pathological lying is falsification entirely disproportionate to any discernible end in view, may be extensive and very complicated, and may manifest over a period of years or even a lifetime”

So in a way we’re all crazy, pathalogical liars. We all have that one guy or girl we try to ditch out on a date with. Come up with insanely pathetic excuses. And we see their eyes light up when they recognize our lies. We sometimes stumble over our words as we try to save ourselves from stupid lies. We beat ourselves up for it for DAYS because we cannot believe that was the best we could come up with.

In this case, your intentions are clear to you, and to others, too. You did not want to go out with this person, and that is completely explainable.

How about the people who make up complete lives, people, locations, events that never happened? Lies that do not alter any past events, or any future outcomes. Lies that are clearly pointless and irrevocable….

Even in the midst of telling a lie, one can convince himself that it isn't really a lie or that it's for the other person's good. But in reality, a lie only contains selfish motivations. People just try to put a good face on it.

After all, most of the statements are ridiculously easy to disprove. To conclude this rant i guess I need to say, making such melodramatic and misleading claims may or may not be pathological, but it certainly isn't a sign that liars have a healthy relationship with reality.